


The Present

by Eireann



Series: I'm Not In Love [2]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Angst, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-08 23:56:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 27,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7778635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eireann/pseuds/Eireann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow-up to 'Don't Make Me Forever'.  Time has moved on, and Enterprise is about to launch in search of the Xindi.  But Captain Archer has no way of knowing the ticking time bomb that is about to arrive on board, with the payload of old resentments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hayes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delighted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/gifts).



> Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no money made.
> 
> Author's Note: Although not graphic, this story has adult content and contains occasional use of bad language. If these offend you, please consider before reading it.
> 
> Disclaimer and grateful thanks: The image used was created by Crying_Lestat who gave me gracious permission to use it. I am exceptionally grateful!

It’s him.

There’s no possible doubt about it.

I sit now in the shuttle as it approaches _Enterprise_ , my guts turning somersaults while inside my head memory and speculation chase and wrestle like a pair of polecats, one blurring into the other with eye-defeating speed.  My thoughts keep going back and back to the afternoon I finally sat down and started studying the ship’s complement, and to the moment of revelation that came like a thunderclap, jerking me backwards in my seat.  The moment when a face I recognized stared back at me from the screen, a little older and with the unmistakable marks of experience, but unmistakably him.

After all these years, I finally have his name.  Not Alastair, of course. 

Malcolm.

The surname was a bit of a letdown.  Maybe there was a Castle Reed somewhere around England, I didn’t know, but it didn’t have quite the aristocratic ring to it that I’d expected.  That said, maybe there was a minor Reed lordling somewhere in the Conqueror’s train; a Sir Malcolm de Reed, whose services rendered earned him a decent little parcel of land around Lincolnshire, if not a starring role in the pages of history.

_Crap._   Even to myself, I’m starting to sound a little hysterical.

That ‘services rendered’ phrase threatens to set off a whole new train of thought that’s anything but appropriate to the time and place, though.   Time should have faded the memories.  It hasn’t.  It’d just slowly slid them away into a cupboard, ready to spring back out on demand, as vivid as though it was yesterday.  His body pressing fiercely against me, his hands tangling in my hair, the hardness in his pants pressing against mine….

I’ve had far too much experience to let anything show on my face, of course.  The captain certainly won’t see anything other than the brisk competent officer he’s undoubtedly been promised, and I have every intention of living up fully to General Casey’s recommendation.  Even my junior officers sharing the locker seat opposite me won’t catch on that there’s anything amiss, though McKenzie’s known me for a good while and normally catches the drift fast enough.  This thing I have going on now is so intensely private, so personal, that I’ve made absolutely sure that my professional demeanor is rock solid.  I haven’t done or said a damn thing that wouldn’t pass the most searching scrutiny; my preparations for the mission were one hundred per cent committed and waterproof. 

It hadn’t helped much that the briefings had contained so little concrete information, but then hardly any mission has as much intel as those planning it would wish for in an ideal world.  It was definitely a new one to find out the basis on which this whole expedition was being launched (the story about an interview with some ‘guy from the future’ aboard an alien ship was the sort of thing I’d normally expect to feature in one of those trashy magazines you see on newsstands where sad people spill out their delusions for a few moments of fame and a couple of dollars), but Captain Archer isn’t the sort of person I could imagine going in for far-fetched alien abduction stories.  He’s been out there dealing with _real_ alien abductions, and presumably knows how to separate fact from fiction.  Though it wasn’t hard to draw the conclusion that there were people even in the top echelons of Starfleet who wondered about that, because it was impressed on me that this part of the story was strictly classified, and for my ears only.  Given the amount of pressure that’s still being brought to bear by those who think _Enterprise_ has no business going out there on a wild-goose chase rather than being kept at home to defend Earth, I could imagine that if this got out there would be hell to pay from that direction.

I can still hardly get my mind around the identity of Archer’s Tactical Officer, though.  I was on a mission when _Enterprise_ first launched; the furor about it passed as just another news item, the Fleeters achieving another milestone in warp technology and eighty-plus people setting off looking for adventure.  Maybe if I’d paid more attention there might have been information on the officers among the broadcasts, but I had far more important things on my mind just then than a Starfleet launch.  Or so I thought….

My musings have taken up the couple of minutes it took for the shuttle to reach the ship.  Looking out of the viewscreen, I see the launch bay doors opening in the underbelly, and the grappler arm being deployed.

He’s somewhere in that huge silver vessel that’s going to be my home for the duration of the mission.  Maybe he’s watching the shuttle approach.  Maybe he’s already received the documentation from the admin department and gone through the files on his computer, bringing up the photographs.  I left strict orders for the complete works to be sent up to _Enterprise_ in advance – it wouldn’t be the best start at all to our working relationship for me to arrive on board unannounced, making it look like he’s already reduced to a cipher in the scheme of things.  On both a personal and a professional level, that’s the very last thing I want him to feel.

If he has gone through the documents, would he have recognized me?

If he recognized me, how would he react?

_Heck, get a grip on yourself – this is a mission to save Earth, and you’re mooning like a lovesick teenager!_ I square my shoulders.  Anyone who noticed it would think it was just the slight shock from the grappler arm contact being transmitted through the shuttle’s frame.  It all happened a long time ago.  We were very different people then.  Surely we can find some way to make peace?

It has to be admitted, though, that ‘peace’ isn’t exactly what I want.  Even now.  As soon as his photograph flicked onto the computer screen as part of my pre-mission briefing I’d felt the instant smack of lust.  Nothing had changed in that respect, at least for me.

But I had to acknowledge – and remind myself repeatedly ever since – that people change.  Of course I’d gone through his Starfleet records, trying to find out where he’d been and what he’d done all these years, but I came up against a solid brick wall.  It seemed he’d been a Fleeter even the first time we met, working in their Security arm, but as for his job, that was another _Classified._ Probably something to do with Intelligence.  His security clearance is pretty damned high – much higher than my own, actually.  His academic qualifications are extremely impressive, even for a Starfleet officer: honors in both warp-field technology and weapons design as well as a whole string of lesser certifications.

So he’s the Head of Security on board _Enterprise_.  The guy who probably won’t be one bit pleased by my arrival, even if he remembers me at all from … well, from that other time.  But hopefully our first experience of field action will convince him that having MACOs aboard is a good thing after all, because the bottom line is that we’re expendable, the soldier ants of the colony.  Our job is to protect the ship, and if we die achieving that, we’ve done our duty.  General Casey was clear on that, and I’ve put it hard and plain to the men and women I’m going to command on board ship.  Whatever _they_ may feel about _us_ , the Fleeters are the valuable ones as far as the mission’s concerned.  They have the know-how to run the ship and do whatever it takes to find the Xindi.  We’re there to make sure they live to do it – no more, no less.  Their survival is our success.  If the ship goes down, so does humanity’s best chance of survival.  Or at least, the best chance (some think) of averting the second strike which ‘the guy from the future’ had predicted. 

It’s probably going to take us a while to find the bastards responsible for the attack.  The waiting will be difficult.  We all want to get into action, want to strike back fast and hard, hitting whatever it takes to ensure there’ll never be another attack like the first – as well as handing out some kind of payback for the seven million innocent victims of that damned probe.  Showing the perpetrators as well as anyone else who might be interested that you don’t just turn up and burn a damn big slice into Planet Earth without there being consequences.

Consequences… so here we are, back again where we started.  _Every action has a consequence.  Even a lack of action has consequences._

I have no idea, even now, why the heck I panicked the way I did; I’m not usually the sort of guy who cuts and runs when things don’t go to plan.  And I’ve regretted so often that I did, instead of trying to work things out, make amends.  How different everything might have been if I hadn’t given into that stupid impulse to bolt, or even if I’d been able to find him again when I’d gone searching.  If he’d been among the crowds who went back and forth from Starfleet HQ, or if I’d been able to remember which apartment I’d fled from on that morning.  I’d have made him listen to me somehow, made him give me another chance.  But it never happened, and now I’m going to find out what the consequences of that failure will be.

I usually try not to look too far ahead, at least outside the realms of necessary planning.  But as the shuttle settles gently onto the floor of the landing bay, I can’t help but feel a shudder of foreboding.

I can feel the future, and there’s blood in it.

 


	2. Reed

It’s purely my imagination, of course, that I feel the quiver of the deck plating as the shuttle settles on to it.  I scold myself for watching the inboard camera intently as the shuttlebay repressurises, but for all my strictures my eyes don’t move.  I’m waiting to see my enemy, to see how he looks and how he acts (it almost certainly will be a ‘he’ – for all the Gender Equality stuff, I’d still bet my year’s salary that when it comes to war, the bigwigs will opt for a man as the best choice).  To see how he arrogantly surveys the territory he’s come to take charge of, removing the onerous responsibility from the chap deemed unfitted to bear it now the chips are _really_ down.  Now that there’s more weighing in the balance than the mere survival of Starfleet’s flagship and the eighty-odd people on board her.

He’s probably decided I can stay on in an ‘advisory capacity’.  Maybe he may need a few tips about the more arcane end of phase cannon operation one of the days, when he has nothing much better to do.  In the meantime I can probably stay on the Bridge and look decorative while he takes over the reins of the _really_ important stuff and places his rodents in the positions of authority.

I can’t remember the last time I felt such boiling, impotent resentment.  Well, yes, I can: the day that I told my father that I’d been accepted for officer training in Starfleet.  Nothing mattered but the fact that it wasn’t the Navy.  As if I hadn’t fucking torn my guts out working to get into the sodding Navy.  As if it hadn’t ripped my heart out when I was told I’d failed solely because of my phobia of drowning, a phobia I’d fought tooth and nail to conquer, but not, it seemed, quite hard enough.  As if I hadn’t clung to the desperate hope that even though it wasn’t the Navy, acceptance into a coveted élite like Starfleet’s officer class might count for _something_ ; might win me some kind of grudging forgiveness.

I don’t know what bloody planet I was on when I thought that fairy story up.  _I wasn’t good enough for the Navy._  That was all that mattered.  I’d finally produced the absolute, damning proof that I was the failure he’d always thought I would be.  I wasn’t just a runt and a weakling, I was a coward to boot.  I wasn’t fit to bear the proud name of Reed, and nothing, _nothing_ , I could ever achieve in this life would ever make amends for that.

“Are you okay, sir?”

I’ve plunged so far back into the past that the soft question makes me jump.  I hadn’t even noticed Hoshi leave her station and walk across to me.  I’d thought she was thoroughly immersed in her work on the linguistics database upgrades, but it seems not.  I look down at my right fist, clenched so hard where it’s resting beside the long-range scanner that the knuckles are completely bloodless, and I can guess that my face has gone pale too, blanched with pain and anger.

This is _not_ professional behaviour.  With an effort, I will my fist to unclench.  The fingers move slowly; they seem to have been rigid for some considerable time.  I draw several calming breaths, willing my temper to subside.  Anger can’t always be overcome, but with the appropriate discipline it can always be channelled – a process far more productive than allowing it to spill over into pointless spitting and yowling, which ultimately achieves nothing.

When I’m sure I have my face and voice under control, I look back at Hoshi.  It’s considerate of her to have come and asked me quietly, not making a big thing of it in front of the support staff who are busy checking the readings as the ship’s system runs a full schedule of tests.  She’s a lovely young woman and a good friend, and if things were different I suspect I’d trust her with a lot of things that I’d confide to very few people indeed.  But if wishes were horses, as the old saying goes, and old habits die hard.  And I learned long ago that trust is a treacherous thing, only marginally less so than hope, and so I nod and fish up a faint smile from somewhere.  “I’m just glad the captain’s back with us, Ensign,” I say, lying as effortlessly as I can when I need to.  “Maybe it’s a sign we’re nearly ready to get on with the mission.”

I’m not altogether sure she buys it.  Her intelligent brown eyes remain troubled, though I meet them steadily.  But at a guess she knows she won’t get any more from me, because she nods and goes back to her station, and moments later T'Pol leans over and asks a question, and the two of them become immersed in some technical issue.  And I, unnoticed, breathe out a long, soundless sigh of relief.

_“Archer to Lieutenant Reed.”_

Well, it’s not like I haven’t been expecting the summons.  The advent of that troop transport plus the presence of three unannounced additional personnel aboard the shuttle add up to everything bar certainty in my mind.  And I suppose I can understand the seductive allure to the captain of having ‘professional soldiers’ on board, rather than gifted amateurs who’ve slogged their bollocks off to come up to the standards I’ve demanded of them; though deep inside me, it still feels like a betrayal.  Still, that’s something I’ll have to come to terms with, as and if I can.  Much will depend on the calibre of this interloper he’s bringing on board, and that has yet to be revealed.

In the meantime, another deep breath enables me to settle the mask more securely into place.

“Reed here, sir.”

_“I’d like you to meet me down at the launch bay, Lieutenant.  I have a few introductions to make.”_

“Sir.”  I close the link and rise obediently, the very model of a perfectly disciplined Starfleet officer.  My steps to the turbo-lift are neither hurried nor slow **.** I enter the compartment and press the required button briskly.  Muscle by muscle, as the lift descends to G Deck, I compose my face into the quiet, attentive expression of a subordinate accepting a directive from a superior officer.  I’ll say ‘Yes sir’ and ‘Welcome aboard sir’ and ‘Pleased to meet you, sir’, and not even Hoshi would pick up the feeling behind it.  Certainly the captain won’t.  As for the MACO, I don’t suppose he’ll give a flying fuck if I’m pleased or not.  Not that he’ll know.  The old Navy maxim _run silent, run deep_ was a very good one for me as a Section operative, and I’ll run so silent and so deep now he’s on board that he’ll hardly know I exist.  That was what the old nuclear subs used to do, in the days before World War Three: cruise submerged down in the total darkness, with a payload on board that could flatten a continent.

Not that I’m out to cause trouble in any way.  The mission depends on all of us co-operating, and a Reed does not endanger any mission for the sake of hurt pride.  He’ll find nothing to complain of when his attention turns in my direction, I’ll make sure of that.  But there are many levels of co-operation, and the interloper had better not make the mistake of thinking that friendship will be among the added extras on offer.

Just as I’m about to emerge from the turbo-lift, the comm unit springs to life.  _“Sato to Lieutenant Reed.”_

I hesitate.  The last thing I want to do is give the Head Rat an excuse to write me down as tardy in obeying an order from the captain, but Hoshi knows where I’m headed, and she wouldn’t call me if it wasn’t urgent.  I step to the unit and thumb the button.  “Reed.”

Her voice has a note of anxiety in it.  _“Sir, there’s a data-package come from Earth for your attention.  It’s marked urgent, but it’s been delayed.  They say there was some kind of problem with the transmission and nobody noticed.”_  

My mouth tightens.  Bloody HQ efficiency.  “Thank you, Ensign.  Route it to my station and I’ll deal with it as a priority on my return.  Reed out.”

I’ve only lost a couple of seconds, and at least now I can concentrate on the opening gambit on this game of real-life chess.  Most games are won and lost in the first few moves.  He’ll make the opening play, I’ll see to that.  And then the available responses will be laid out for me to choose among.  I play the computer most nights, and a lot of the time I win.  _Strategy and tactics, Ratty, strategy and tactics._

Longer strides make up for the lost few seconds.  I straighten my uniform, straighten my back.  He won’t see a damn thing I don’t want him to see.

The door hisses open.  Four people have climbed out of the shuttle – the pilot, presumably, is still inside, waiting till the launch bay empties and depressurises again so he can return to Jupiter Station.  One of them is the captain.  Two of the others might as well be Laurel and Hardy for all I notice them.  My gaze has flown to the Head Rat, the man who’s come to take over the position in which I’ve taken so much pride.  And there it stops.

Time rolls back.  His finger, pointing; his voice, slurred with red wine.  “I know you’re not really there.  But if you want it...”

The hair stands up on the back of my neck.  It literally does.  My hackles.  I swear to God, if my survival hung on my being able to describe exactly what I feel in this instant, I’d order the funeral right now.  I want to fly across the room and butter him all over the walls; I want to throw him down on the floor, rip his kit off and suck him halfway to paradise before I fuck him the rest of the way.  And those are the _simple_ bits.The whole effect is, quite simply, indescribable.

He knows.  I’d swear he knows.  There’s something ... something beyond the summing stare I expect from a man who’s here to take my hard-won place.

“Captain,” I say politely, transferring my gaze to my CO after the barest pause.

Captain Archer speaks slightly louder than usual, probably anticipating some resistance to the concept on my part and determined to override it.  “Lieutenant, let me introduce you to Major Matthew Hayes.  General Casey has kindly lent us a squad of his top MACOs for the mission.”

“Major.”  My voice is civil.  Totally civil.  Totally bland.  I meet his eyes again with the cool, open stare of a stranger.

“Lieutenant.”  _Oh bugger, another Yank who can’t pronounce Lieutenant properly.  At least his accent’s not as bad as Trip’s._ Perversely, this last fact irks me, as though it would be less annoying if he sounded like the ‘down home country-boy’ I mistakenly thought Trip was when I first came on board.  That said, merely the fact that he’s breathing is a source of irritation to me right now.  Though the really infuriating bit is the realisation that as a major he outranks me, and my fate is now officially sealed. 

“Corporal Chang, Corporal McKenzie,” he continues, indicating Laurel and Hardy, presumably two of his subordinate rats.  “The rest of the squad are following on under the command of Sergeant Kemper.  They’re scheduled to arrive at eighteen hundred hours, just before the launch.”

_Oh, nice.  He’s barely set foot on the decking and he already knows more about the bloody ship’s schedule than I do!_ I acknowledge the junior officers’ existence with a brief nod, to which they respond appropriately – just as well for them.

 The captain has waited for us all to do the polite stuff, and then picks up the conversation again.  “The General and I have decided that since you have ship-board experience, Lieutenant, for the purposes of the mission you should be considered to be the senior officer.  Major Hayes is already aware of this.  Though I’m sure you’ll take any of his opinions under advisement.”

A quick mental scan of the regulations finds no _specific_ reference as to the impropriety of dancing the fandango around the shuttlebay in the presence of your commanding officer, but I contain myself nevertheless.

“Certainly, sir.  Thank you,” I say politely.

“I hope we’ll establish a good working relationship, Lieutenant,” says Major If-You-Want-It.

“I hope so too, Major,” I say politely.  Would that be with or without an inadvisable quantity of red wine and a cognac or two?

“If there’s anything you need to discuss in the information about my team, I’m at your disposal.  Sir,” he adds, with a commendable lack of irony at having to address an officer whom he technically outranks by that title.

I return his gaze blankly, and then allow a look of inspiration to dawn.  “Information?  Oh, yes.  Our communications officer has just advised me that a high-priority data package for me arrived just after your shuttle did.  It had been accidentally delayed, apparently.  I dare say that’s the information you’re referring to.”

A look of unmistakable discomfiture.  It’s not his fault, but he knows damn well it doesn’t look good for his bloody MACOs and their inefficient admin.  Not a good start – not a good start at all.

“Then you weren’t expecting our arrival, sir.”  It’s a statement rather than a question.  “I apologize for that.”

I’m already turning away, ostensibly to open the door for the captain – who’s preparing to leave me to play nicely with my new little friends – but at this I look back.  “No, Major, unfortunately I wasn’t.  But I know these things happen in even well-run departments.  I’m sure we both expect high standards on board ship.”

The captain knows me well enough to give me a somewhat searching stare at that, but there’s absolutely nothing in it that he can reasonably take exception to.  So he orders me to pass on the information about our new arrivals to the quartermaster, who’ll have the task of finding somewhere for all the rats to nest during the voyage (my description, not the captain’s).  It’s probably just as well that he leaves before Ensign Wilcox responds to the message I leave with one of his staff to contact me, because in the face of having this little lot dumped on him out of the blue, our quartermaster’s private opinions will probably be almost as colourful as mine – and he’s had a lot less experience in hiding it over a comm link.

That leaves me and the MACOs in the shuttlebay.  I suggest that it might be a good idea for us to leave, because the lights have come on to signal the shuttle is cleared to go as soon as the area is emptied and sealed.  Being sucked out into hard vacuum is not in accordance with health and safety regulations, and I had a memorable conversation with Trip back on Shuttlepod One on the feasibility of holding one’s breath for an improbable length of time.  Strictly speaking, whoever’s manning the control booth should run the safety checks before starting depressurisation, but in the case of a failure on someone’s part to adhere to that particular part of the process there would be certain difficulties involved with any of us lodging a complaint about it afterwards.

I still haven’t decided whether or not he’s recognised me.  I’m pretty sure he has, but I don’t know him nearly well enough to be able to tell if his voice is normal or not.  This is where Hoshi’s talents would come in handy, but it would be a delicate sort of thing to phrase if I were to ask for her help.  I can imagine it stopping quite a few nearby conversations if I embarked on the explanation in the Mess Hall.  By the time I got to the grand finale, you’d probably be able to hear a pin drop.

The door to the shuttlebay closes behind us.  The three MACOs have their personal belongings; presumably the rest of their things will be following on in the troop transport.  They stand waiting to be told where to go. 

I look at them impassively.

“In view of the fact we had no notice of your arrival, I think it’s best you use the guest quarters until our Quartermaster makes his disposals,” I observe.  “I’ll take you there.  I recommend you use the terminals in your rooms to acquaint yourselves with ship routine – you should be able to access all basic visitor information.  As soon as I’ve had time to look through your vetting data I’ll add you to the appropriate security protocols.”

“I’d appreciate that, Lieutenant,” says Hayes evenly.

We walk to the guest quarters on G Deck in silence.  Fortunately the ship’s designers envisaged that we might need a decent bit of spare accommodation; most of it will probably be allocated to the higher-ranking MACOs, and at a guess the rest will be billeted out among the crew.  Not the officers, though, with any luck.  _Dear Lord, not the officers.  Don’t let Captain Sensible come up with the idea that as we’re both weapons specialists it would be a good idea for Hayes and me to share a room, because we’d have_ so _many items of mutual interest to talk about in the shift-change intervals.  There’d be murder done before we passed Pluto._

The two corporals can share a room until Ensign Wilcox makes his dispositions, and I point them to a suitable one.  Hayes as their CO can have his own; I owe his rank that much. 

The silence as the two of us walk the few metres to his new quarters is as thick as treacle.  I suspect he’s waiting (hoping?) for me to say something, but I’ll be damned if I will.

I’m perfectly well aware that if I tell Em any of this she’ll come out with a string of Spanish obscenities and finally tell me I’m behaving like a petulant child.  (Her absolute respect for my authority has never, ever, stopped her from mentioning the fact that that I’m behaving like a total prick whenever she feels this is the case.  Fortunately for me, she does this in private, and even more fortunately, it doesn’t happen very often.)  She’d probably be right, at that, but just at this moment I don’t give a shit.  Too many things have rushed back over me with too little warning, and I’m going to need time to make the appropriate adjustments.  Until then, the silence can stay just where it is.

And if Major Matthew Hayes has anything he particularly wants to say, that’s up to him.  But if he chooses to venture into the dragon’s cave, he’d better be wearing some damn thick fire-retardant underwear.  He did more damage to me than practically anyone else I can remember in my adult life, and I’m not in a forgiving mood.

We reach the door.  I’m sure he doesn’t need me to hit the access button for him.

The door hisses back.  He hesitates for just a second, while I stare back at him stonily.   He _does_ recognise me.  I’m sure of it.  But if there was ever anything between us, I’ve forgotten it completely.

“The morning briefing is in the captain’s Ready Room on the Bridge at zero eight hundred hours,” I say into the small, hollow pause.  “As tomorrow will be your first day he’ll probably want to introduce you to the other senior officers.  Until then, consider yourself off duty.  Until I clear your security access, you’re to consider Main Engineering and the Armoury as off limits, and do not attempt to access the Bridge until zero seven fifty-five tomorrow morning at the earliest.

“Dismissed.”

“Sir,” he says quietly.  And, clearly knowing it’s completely against the rules to continue a conversation his superior officer has terminated, he walks into the room and shuts the door.

I’m left looking at the blank sheet of duranium.

There isn’t a single word I’ve said to him that’s one I wouldn’t say to any new member of the crew who’d come aboard without the standard security clearance.  As Head of Security, I could and would say it to a bloody Admiral who’d happened to sneak on board under the radar.  There isn’t a disciplinary tribunal in Starfleet which wouldn’t dismiss all charges and let me walk out of court without a stain on my character if I was hauled up before it for improper conduct.  I was clear, I was precise, I was objective, I was polite.  I’ve been a perfect professional from start to finish.

So why the hell do I feel so furious with myself?

My shift ends in half an hour.  I ought to return to the Bridge, but I’m not sure I can be trusted with the live firing mechanism just now.  Instead I make my way to the Armoury, where I run simulations that light up the display like the Fifth of November, hammering hell out of the firing sequences until Bernhard coughs respectfully behind me.

“ _Herr Leutnant_ , your shift ended an hour ago,” he informs me somewhat hesitantly.  “I think you may perhaps have forgotten the time...”

I look at the screen, where CG images of beautiful symmetrical explosions dissipate slowly.  My hit ratio’s even better than usual, and I’d set the difficulty ratio to maximum.  Apparently anguish is good for the aim.

I should change into civvies and head for the Mess Hall, but I’m not hungry.  Instead, as soon as I’m out of the shower I drag on my sports gear and head for the gymnasium.  There’s a punch-bag there with which I have an urgent appointment.

And the problem of Major Matthew Hayes can wait until tomorrow.


	3. Hayes

I should be sleeping, but I can’t.

I lie on the (admittedly comfortable) bunk – more comfortable than many I’ve had to make do with over the years – and find myself replaying our interactions.  Trying to get a clue, trying to read something from the stainless steel mask which has replaced that young, reckless, vivid face I remember so clearly.

_Does_ he remember me?

I can’t help but read resentment into his stiff correctness, though his staff records say he’s a strictly-by-the-book officer who runs his department firmly in accordance with the regulations.  There wasn’t a single thing he said that I can put my finger on and say, ‘There.  _That’s_ what proves he’s pissed off.’  He’d said exactly what he had to, when he had to.  No more; no less.  There probably isn’t any regulation that says he has to be friendly, and I have to admit that if I were in his shoes I’d be pissed off too.  But the fact of what _I_ would be is a dangerously unreliable guide to what _he_ is.

Whatever he is, he’s not letting on.

When my chronometer rolls on to midnight I give up on the hope of getting to sleep anytime soon, and decide to go get a hot drink.  Coffee certainly isn’t going to help, but maybe they might have something less stimulating on offer.  I’m so desperate by now I’ll drink hot milk, hoping it’ll do some good.

The guest quarters aren’t that far from the Mess Hall.  I remember enough of the schematics on the visitor information program to find my way there without difficulty.

It’s sort of a relief to find that Malcolm (I still find myself thinking ‘Alastair’ at odd moments) isn’t there.  For all my compulsion towards him, it feels way too much like a crazy urge to get up close and personal with a grizzly bear just out of hibernation.  It’s probably a whole lot better for everyone concerned if both of us keep our distance for a while. 

The checks and tweaks and rechecks are going on non-stop in the frantic rush to get the ship into A1 condition.  There are a few station technicians here and there among the crew, looking dead-beat but topping up their systems with coffee or energy drinks. 

I get myself a hot milk drink and retire to a quiet corner to start my people-watching.  These crew members are the Fleeters that my squad has been ordered to protect, with their lives if necessary.  Maybe it’s the tiredness and the misery of the moment, but I find myself studying each of them, wondering what the heck it is about them that makes them worth sacrificing my people’s lives for.  

The ship is as sleepless as an ants’ nest.  People are constantly coming and going, refueling for the next stint.  Usually there’s little reaction to the arrivals and departures, but at one point a blond guy comes in and walks to the coffee dispenser and there’s a sort of sympathetic hush.  I don’t think he even hears it.  His face is closed and dark, and he stares through the coffee machine like he’s seeing something a long, long way away – something that’s dragged his mouth into ugly lines of pain and anger.  His coverall’s dark with oil stains and the sleeves of it are rolled up to his elbows, but for all that he might be any anonymous crewman I know who he is: Trip Tucker, the whiz-kid engineer who’s in charge of this ship’s Warp 5 engine.  Poor guy lost his kid sister in the Xindi attack.  I never had a sister, but I don’t even want to think about what it would be like to lose one in such a way.

For a moment he clearly thinks about taking his drink back to wherever he’s been working, but with a faint shrug he heads for the tables instead.  Most of the tables have two or three people sitting at them; mine is one of the few where there are more empty seats than full ones, so with a lift of the eyebrows that asks if I mind, he drops into one opposite me and takes a first, cautious sip of his coffee.  “Haven’t seen you around before,” he remarks.  He’s probably not really suspicious, and probably not even that curious, just making conversation.  Anything, rather than think about that fire from the heavens scorching its way down Florida where he comes from, catching his kid sister and incinerating her along with seven million others.

“I only arrived a few hours ago, sir,” I reply.  I’m not yet officially one of the ship's complement, so I don’t have to stand, but I speak formally in recognition of the fact he’s both in uniform and a superior officer.  “Hayes.  Matthew Hayes.  Major in command of the MACOs on board.”

I couldn’t honestly say he stiffens, but the summer blue of his eyes suddenly bleaches into the color of the winter sky, distant and chill.  “Nobody told me we were having MACOs on board.”

“I believe the decision was only made quite recently.”

He ruminates, studying me.  “You’ve met Lieutenant Reed?” he asks at last.

“The captain introduced us as soon as we came on board.”  I keep my voice perfectly neutral; whatever I feel about Malcolm or he feels about me, nobody else is going to find out about it.  Certainly not through me, anyhow.

He smiles.  Maybe before the Xindi attack it might have been an attractive smile, but now it’s hardly more than a twist of the mouth, and filled with bitterness.  “Good luck with that one.”

There doesn’t seem to be anything I can usefully say to that.  The shadows under his eyes are almost violet with exhaustion, and I’m not going to start a quarrel with a man who’s too blind tired to think about the propriety of what he’s saying.

The door opens again, and a slender, graceful figure in a tight-fitting, strictly-non-regulation catsuit walks in and goes to the drinks dispenser; looks like more than one of the senior staff are short of sleep tonight.  I don’t miss the way Tucker’s eyes slide towards her, but I’m startled to see the intensity of the hopeless longing that flares in them.  I can understand how any heterosexual male would find those curves attractive – even I can see how beautiful she is – but this guy has it _bad._ And she’s a Vulcan, though I’m surprised she’s wearing something so calculated to show off her voluptuous figure.  Last time I saw her, back at Starfleet HQ (I’m pretty sure it’s the same woman, though something of that icy arrogance has thawed), she was wearing much more usual formal clothing, designed to emphasize her status rather than her curves.

People-watching.  You can find out so much by sitting still and saying very little.  The personal interrelations between the ship’s officers and crew are something any responsible security officer has to remain aware of.  There are as many stresses and strains among the people running the vessel as there are among the mechanical and electrical parts that make up the ship itself, and it’s my job to watch for potential trouble anywhere it might possibly rear its head, especially during a voyage where the responsibility will apply so much additional, external pressure.  At the end of my last briefing, General Casey told me, quietly and off the record, that he wanted me to keep a particular eye on Captain Archer.  The burden on him will be simply unbelievable, and he’ll need all the support we can give him.

That, I could understand.  My own responsibility’s already weighing me down, and his must be incalculably heavier.  On the way back to his ship he’d been tense, almost _brittle_ with strain, clearly longing to get all the preparations done and get under way.  No doubt everyone else on board feels the same way too – I certainly do – and maybe things will settle down a little as soon as the order to depart can be given and we’re finally on our way.

Well.  That’s what I hope.  And not just as regards the mission.  Malcolm too must be burdened with the responsibility.  Maybe if I do absolutely everything I can to improve things, he’ll start to drop his shields just a little.  I’m sure he wants just the same as I do – for the department and the ship to be in the best possible state of readiness when we finally catch up with the Xindi.   

And we _will_ catch up with them.  I trust the Fleeters implicitly on that.  They, too, have the grim resolve that for this mission, failure is not an option.

As Tucker finishes his coffee and leaves with a brief nod, I drink the last of my hot milk and look out the viewing port at the vast hostile surface of Jupiter. 

‘Failure is not an option’.  I like the sound of that.


	4. Reed

Seven minutes.  We got clear of the trellium mine with just seven minutes to spare.

It was close.  It was _too_ damn close.  I know Hayes knows it, and he knows I know it.  He also knows, as I do, that the performance of his MACOs was exemplary, and that the praise I gave them when we got back from the surface was deserved.  Not flowery, perhaps, but then I don’t do ‘flowery’.  (Hopefully they don’t either.  Flowery MACOs … no.  Probably not.)

I’d like to think that my own team could have done as well, but however much the truth hurts, they probably couldn’t.  I do think they could have managed the extraction, but whether it could have been achieved in the time … well, I suspect the margin of safety would have been a little narrower.  And, by definition, a little more unsatisfactory.

The shuttlepod journey back from the trellium mine wasn’t exactly a joy.  I don’t know what the hell Trip had been wading in, but even with the air filtration on maximum we were all sitting there trying to breathe as little as possible.  I definitely didn’t envy Travis piloting the second shuttle with the captain and the Xindi inside it, double the aroma.  Fortunately, Decon is equipped with some fairly emphatic showers that got rid of the worst of it before we all had the pleasure of each other’s company, and Phlox distributed some nasal numbing agent to help us all endure what was left.  Even so, I got a brief and illuminating glimpse of the daily hell T’Pol must have endured before she got used to living among Humans….

Hayes sedulously didn’t look at me after we got back, and I kept my back turned to him in Decon.  The almost-argument we’d had during the planning had got beyond my control too quickly, the resentment flaring far faster than I’d expected.  In hindsight, I’m furious that I allowed myself to get so angry I complained to T’Pol.  As a Vulcan she was hardly likely to understand the intricacies of Human power-struggles, and in the unlikely event of my spilling my guts as to the underlying reason for my bitterness, that was hardly likely to enlighten her any further.

I encounter Trip in the corridor as I’m returning from Sickbay.  I was in command of the rescue mission, so I don’t stand down until all reports are in; and I was more relieved than I cared to admit that the two MACOs injured in the operation had been dismissed from our amiable Denobulan’s tender care to recover in their own quarters.  I’m also absurdly pleased that Trip seems reasonably cheerful, considering the ordeal he’s just been through.  He makes a generous effort to claim that my team would have done as good a job of the rescue as Hayes’, which I ruefully dismiss – I appreciate the attempt to salve my professional pride, but I know better.

I can admit this to Trip, but then Trip is a friend.  Our friendship has evolved to the point that there is not much I can’t talk to him about, but not even to Trip can I confess exactly why I’m reacting like I am.  We part again, and I watch him walk away and wonder what he’d think and say if he knew.  For all our friendship, there are things I’ve never told him.  Although in these days we’re all supposed to be enlightened about sexual orientation, he’s so straightforwardly heterosexual that I can’t quite be sure how he’d react to any revelations of mine that I am far from straightforward and not strictly heterosexual either.  Friendship is such a rarity in my life that I hesitate to do anything that might endanger this one, or even change the quality of his opinion of me.  Another secret is no burden to me; I already carry far worse than this small, silent deceit.

He knows that I resent Hayes.  He hasn’t said much, but the mere fact that he felt it necessary to tell me that my team could do as well is all the evidence I need that he too knows we’re outclassed.  What he doesn’t know, and must never find out, is that every waking second I’m aware of the devils fighting in my soul, the twin demons of hatred and desire for the outsider, the interloper, the _bête noir_ of my existence.

That man’s presence on board _Enterprise_ is salt in an open wound.  Every breath I draw reminds me of his existence, every time I hear his voice I hear the words _If you want to, I…_

_‘I ‘what’, Hayes?  I fancy you, I think you’re a prick, I despise you, I want to put my tongue down your throat, I should never have come here, I’m in love, I’m drunk, I’m desperate, I want a quick fuck’?_

I want to forget about him, I want to ignore him, I want to despise him, I want to march him to the transporter platform and beam him out into space, dispersing his atoms along a billion-kilometre stellar plume.

I want to kiss him senseless, I want to tear his uniform off him one shred at a time with my teeth, I want to leave the marks of my fingernails in his flesh.  I want to be so close to him neither of us remembers where I end and he begins, drowning in the vortex of need and fulfilment.

Later, I find myself in the corridor where the guest quarters are situated.  He didn’t move rooms from the one I allocated to him.  Why the hell do I imagine there’s any significance in that? 

My movements are quite soundless;  I can move like a shadow when I choose, and I’ve just come barefoot from the gymnasium where I’ve tried vainly to outrun my thoughts, my desires.  There’s no-one in sight.  I lean against the wall beside his door, and my fingers ghost across the chime.   If I rang it he’d appear.

I have excuses I could use – plausible on anyone’s terms.  I could say I’d appreciated his team’s work today and mean to make special note of it in my report (both true).  I could say I’ve found something in the schedules that I think could be rearranged to make more efficient use of our joint training time (also true).  He might invite me in.  I can imagine, no, I can _remember,_ the scene as the door closes behind me, and this time my rampant imagination runs on to what would follow, till we’re twined on his bunk and he tells me he’s dreamed of seeing me there, wanting him like I wanted him that night.  I might even say _Why did you leave_ and _I’ve spent all these years_ and _love me, love me, love me_ , like the lovesick fool I became that day in the restaurant.

What would he say?

I know what the Regulations would say.  If he said _Yes_ – _if_ he said _Yes_ , which is by no means certain – they would say _No._ One of us is the junior officer of the other, though even now I’m not sure which.  We are each in each other’s direct chain of command.  Paradox heaped on paradox, immolating hope, if indeed this anguished longing is hope and not despair.

There is no way back for me.

Silently I walk away down the corridor, and it feels as though I have left a part of me there.  Tomorrow things will be back to normal, but just for tonight I will allow myself the agonising punishment of caring.


	5. Hayes

What the _hell...?_

Commander Tucker gave me the heads-up when he told me I’m now Acting Head of Tactical, but now I’m actually seeing the reality, I just can’t begin to process it.

The uniform is all that identifies him; though it’s filthy, the maroon piping is still visible, and the two rank pips glimmer through the dirt.  His face has been transformed and distorted almost beyond recognition, his hair’s long and messy, and his actions are those of a wild animal or a lunatic.  He flings himself around the confined area of Decon, not hearing or responding to anything that’s said to him.  His hoarse shrieks ring through the comm system, one word repeated over and over in the tirade: _Urquat._

From the little that Commander Tucker had time to tell me as he explained the situation and gave me his orders, Lieutenant Reed and the others have been infected by some kind of ‘mutagenic virus’.  Two other ships have arrived, whose crew have standing orders to eliminate the virus and – by extension – whoever’s contracted it.  One of the officers has come over to discuss the situation, but apparently the guy sounded pretty determined.  I hope Tucker has the same kind of determination, that’s all.  At least he had the sense to order me to station my people at access points around the ship; strictly speaking I shouldn’t even be in here, but I ... I just had to see him.  Even if just for a few seconds.

A glance around shows Doctor Phlox busy with his samples and microscope, his back turned to me.  Nobody else is in Sickbay.

I lean against the Plexiglas, laying my hand against it.  I want him to turn and look at me, just for one moment.  I want to reach something in there, something that must surely be still able to function, to recognize, to reason.  I want to tell him that we’re working on this, that we’re doing everything we can, that we – that _I_ – won’t let him be ‘eliminated’ like some goddamn bacterium. 

He must catch the movement out of the tail of his eye.  He swings around towards me.  His eyes are wide, bright blue, inhuman.  His expression is manic with desperation.  He wants me to understand, but I don’t.

He hurls himself against the Plexiglas so hard I feel it quiver.  The comm unit transmits his cries: _Urquat, Urquat._ The same word.  Always the same word, mixed in with the fluent jabber of a language he doesn’t speak a word of.He’s barely three centimeters away from me and the lack of communication between us is absolute.  Although the changes to his facial structure make it ugly, I can still read the wild frustration, the fury and despair that nobody is _listening_ to him, nobody will set him free to find … Urquat, whatever it is.

He hopes that I will be the one who finally listens.  That I’ll be the one who understands, who opens the door and lets him run.

But unless I’m completely wrong about the situation, Malcolm’s been running all his life – running from anything and anyone that could care about him.  Maybe what’s scaring him the most is that suddenly he can’t run; he’s powerless and trapped.  Maybe that’s why he’s been acting like the worst of uptight dickheads towards me, in the moments when he can’t actively avoid my presence altogether, which he does most of the time.

I’m not stupid enough to imagine for a moment that anything about me impacts on the frenzied figure who stares at me through the viewscreen before flinging away to resume his battering and clawing of the walls.  He probably doesn’t have a clue who I am, let alone what happened between us.  All he cares about is _Urquat_ , and I won’t let him out to find it, so that’s the end of his interest in me.

Phlox is a hell of a doctor, I already know that.  So I’m not altogether surprised to find that he’s beside me, giving me a look that I guess sees more than I’m really comfortable with.

“We won’t give up on him, Major,” he says quietly.  “The people from these new ships may have information that can shed light on his condition.”

“And if they don’t?” I ask.

His face is sad and compassionate, though not devoid of hope.  “I’m afraid we have very limited time, but I’ve had a few encouraging indications in my research so far.  If we can get any help at all from people who’re already familiar with it, it may be of enormous assistance.”

The comm interrupts him.  _“Doc, I’m bringing our visitor down.  He wants to see for himself that our ‘outbreak’ is securely contained.”_

Phlox bristles.  “I know perfectly well what I’m doing, Commander.  By all means bring who you like.  They will see for themselves that Lieutenant Reed poses no risk whatever to anyone on the ship.”

_‘Lieutenant Reed poses no risk whatever to anyone on the ship’._ I can hardly believe I’m hearing the words.  That guy in there cares so passionately about the safety of the crew that he tried to commit suicide once when he thought his staying alive was endangering those he'd signed on to protect – an act that wasn’t listed in the official report, but I’ve already gotten my sources in the ship’s grapevine.  But then, it’s not the man – it’s what he’s carrying in his body, that damned virus that’s taken away not just his humanity but his whole reason for living: he’s now not the protector of the ship, but something that presents such a threat to her and others that someone he’s never even met wants to just ‘eliminate’ him.

Just as well he doesn’t know that.  He’d be tearing the place apart trying to find ways to ‘eliminate’ himself.

“I’d better go, Doc,” I say.  This visitor may decide that the isolation chamber doesn’t satisfy his requirements, and if he does, things may get ugly. 

Just before I leave, I throw one last look towards the isolation chamber.  Malcolm’s looking out through the Plexiglas again, staring at me.  His eyes are wide and wild.  I want to believe he remembers something, that he knows I’m here for him and that if it comes to a fire-fight I’ll hold the doors against anything these people want to throw at us, but I’ve never been in the habit of kidding myself; the word his mouth forms is _Urquat._

Urquat.  Whatever it is, wherever it is.  As I step into the corridor, hefting the pulse rifle I’ve brought along because the ship’s under threat from two unknown vessels, I wish I’d never heard the word.  As elusive and infuriating a bastard as Reed can be, he’s still the man I....

Commander Tucker appears, escorting the alien who wants to eliminate our tactical officer.  He’s a big guy, and his face has enough humanoid features for me to recognize without difficulty that he’s perfectly prepared – no, _determined –_ to carry out his orders.  As his gaze flickers across mine I hope he sees that in that respect he’s facing a kindred spirit, and I catch a grim glance from Tucker that says this guy is going to take some convincing that Malcolm is not a threat.  And I got a look at those ships out there on the way here, and I know we’re almost certainly outmatched in both speed and firepower.

I can’t believe that the Fleeters were so criminally careless as to have both the captain and his XO leave the ship on an away mission.  Sure, they needed a comm officer to translate any text they might find on that crashed ship, and it was sensible to take security along (though did it have to be the Head of the Department, when no specific threat was anticipated?), but now we’re facing a diplomatic incident with the Head of Engineering left in the hot seat.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Tucker, I respect him and I feel really sorry for the pain he’s in, but I don’t think his studies included much by way of negotiating skills.  This is the point at which someone like T’Pol, who served in the Vulcan diplomatic corps for years, would come in really, really useful.  Instead of which she’s down on the planet, apparently trying to build some kind of bridge of understanding with two other _Urquat_ -obsessed crazies who used to be Captain Archer and Ensign Sato.

The visitor and the Acting Captain disappear into Sickbay, escorted by Ensign Burton who’s one of Malcolm’s best security team and who’ll call me the instant there’s a problem.  I’ll wait outside, just in case we have any additional, unexpected arrivals.  You never know, and I don’t take chances.

But as I take up station, I can’t help wondering what will happen if the aliens don’t buy our safety precautions, or if Phlox can’t come up with a cure in time.

Earth is depending on us.  If we can’t outrun or outfight these ships, will Tucker sacrifice the safety of Earth for one man who doesn’t even know who he is anymore?

And if he won’t?  What then?

Do we just hand him over, shutting our eyes to what will inevitably happen next?

Or if not, how do we…

Who would…

I can’t imagine what such an order would do to Phlox, committed as he is to saving life.  I can’t even imagine him obeying it, unless it was in the last extremity, to have it done here on _Enterprise_ by someone the lieutenant would have thought a friend rather than by some anonymous alien in a containment cell.

T’Pol, maybe, would have the hardihood, but then she’s down there on the planet, half-way to turning into one of these creatures herself.  The captain is out of the reckoning, though I can imagine General Casey’s reaction to the idea that Archer might have to take on the responsibility of deliberately killing one of his own officers.

Tucker?  He and Malcolm have been friends almost since the start of the ship’s maiden voyage.  I think he’s got enough to bear right now without having a friend’s blood on his hands.

So.  That leaves me.

If it has to be done, I’ll do it.  If that’s the only gift I can give him, I’ll give it willingly.  The memory of him in that isolation room sickens me to my stomach, mostly because I know how mortified he’d be to be seen like that.  To be left like that forever, if Phlox can’t find a cure … No.  He wouldn’t want that at any price.

At a guess, if the aliens demand we kill him, there’ll be some debate over how it should be done.  The whole idea of it is surreal, and as I stand motionless in the corridor, my eyes steady at the next junction and my whole attention focused on the first peep from the comm unit on the wall, I try to imagine which he’d prefer.  No doubt Phlox would want him knocked out and then given some humane injection – put to sleep, quietly and clinically, like an animal.  But maybe – this is probably fanciful, but maybe he’d prefer a clean shot with a phase pistol, in the hands of someone who knows how to use it, rather than the seeping drowsiness of a knockout gas through the vents and then the cold, clinical kiss of a hypospray….

I could do that for him.  And I think he’d prefer to go out that way, if he knew; I’ve caught glimpses of that wry, sweet half-smile of his, though never aimed in my direction, and I can imagine him saying _He who lives by the phase pistol…_ And maybe if he’d have been able to understand he’d have smiled at me as I took aim, smiled through the fear and the anguish of not reaching _Urquat_ , because not dying would be so infinitely worse…

But the whole point is that he doesn’t know.  He doesn’t understand.  All he understands is _Urquat_ , and that more people are in there looking at him through the Plexiglas instead of letting him go.  He doesn’t know that he’s going to have to die because all he wants to do is go to Urquat, and the whole damned thing is so utterly unjust.

The exchange in Sickbay is brief.  The alien marches out again, his face tense with frustration, and Burton escorts him up the corridor, presumably heading for the airlock through which he came.  I want to go too, but my place is here – just in case some signal has already been transmitted to those waiting ships that negotiations have failed and force will now be required.

Tucker won’t hand Malcolm over without a fight.

And neither will I.


	6. Chapter 6

‘Confined to quarters’.

Damn right I’m confined to bloody quarters. 

For once in my life I don’t even complain about it, mostly because every few minutes I have to rush into the loo and throw up, and as for what’s going on at the other end, well, don’t even think about asking.

Insects and I have always tolerated each other’s existence without feeling any particular need to deepen our acquaintance, except for a period I’d rather forget when a nice juicy beetle in the long grass was a treasure of a find in my battle not to die of starvation.  Fortunately, the memories of that time are distant enough for the details to have grown somewhat vague, if still unpleasantly crunchy if I choose to examine them closely – which, unsurprisingly, I seldom do.

Equally fortunately, my memories of the time I spent as one of the Loque’eque are also somewhat hazy.  But there are more than enough of them to account for the way my entire digestive tract is performing frenzied acrobatics now in its effort to rid itself of something that disagrees with it at an apparently sub-molecular level, if such a thing is actually possible.

Grubs.  Squirming in the sweet, gooey innards of a decaying fruit.  Protein and sugar in handfuls, scooped up and shoved into the mouth with hungry eagerness, and swallowed down almost whole…

Just the memory brings water and bile rushing up my throat, unstoppable.  My already exhausted abdominal muscles clench and twist again, fighting for what feels like an hour to empty my already empty stomach.

When the uproar finally subsides I raise my head from the toilet bowl again and weakly depress the flush button.  Surely there can’t possibly be a single vestige of food matter left inside me by now? 

I suppose I should be grateful that my entire colon didn’t decamp via the back door last time I sat down; I honestly thought it was going to.  Give it time, though, give it time.  I’m sure a case of a completely everted bowel would brighten Phlox’s day.

As I subside on to the bathroom floor, too exhausted even to leave the scene of the crime, I offer the best thanks I can muster to Fate that my inferior position in the pecking order ensured I got the smallest share of the loot as regards the gr…

_Fuck!_

…God, that was a narrow squeak. 

By some miracle, my descending colon has still hung on in there, despite all suggestions to the contrary.  I bless the thoughtful designers of the ship’s bathrooms for placing the sink at such a convenient distance for resting an aching head on, while I try not to think about things that wriggle and ….

I don’t even want to _imagine_ what Hoshi’s going through.  She got the contents of a whole fruit to herself.  I only got the crumbs from the captain’s table, and those were quite exciting enough for my digestion.  The captain himself appears to have coped relatively well, however, so maybe Hoshi will too.  It seems that my always-temperamental gut has seized yet another opportunity to cover me in mortification: the man who can’t handle his grubs.

Fabulous.  Just bloody fabulous.

I have to report to Sickbay again shortly, so Phlox can check I’m not becoming dehydrated.  I’m taking the drinks he gave me, but considering they’re coming back up even faster than they go down, I have this nasty feeling I may not get out again in a hurry.  And if all this lot is unendurable in the privacy of my own quarters, I decline to imagine how I’d cope with the humiliation of it in Sickbay.

_Get a bloody grip, Reed, you pathetic git!_

Mustering all the obstinacy I can summon, I shed my few remaining items of clothing and stumble into the shower.  I put more force than necessary into scouring my skin with the body-scrubber, in the hope that the discomfort will divert my attention from my still intermittently heaving stomach.  I’m an officer and a Reed, and I should not be fannying about in here when I ought to be on duty.  If I can just manage to forget about those bloody…

I swallow hard, several times.  Fortunately this seems to work.  For the moment.

I’m not sure how you go about telling yourself to forget something without actually thinking about it and thereby reminding yourself about the thing you’re trying to forget.  If there is a way, I haven’t come up with it so far.

Sudden pain rather than discomfort alerts me to the fact that I have bruises.  Now that I have time to look, I discover that actually I have quite a few, mostly down my arms but one or two on my legs as well.  Presumably some of these were from my ill-advised attempt to wrest back from the captain the fruit I’d gone up into the tree to harvest; he wasn’t gentle about reminding me who was the boss around here, and he should be thankful that along with my humanity I evidently lost my grasp of martial arts.  But most of them are on impact points – the places where I’d hit an unyielding surface with disproportionate force, with predictable results.

At a guess, Phlox has already seen these and deemed them harmless.  Nevertheless, I won’t aggravate them and give him any more of an excuse to incarcerate me.

_Incarcerated…._ A shudder runs through my whole body.

I _was_ incarcerated.  Literally.  On my desk the monitor is shining, the only bright item in an otherwise darkened room.  I can’t see it from here, but I know what it’s showing: the security recording from Sickbay, specifically the camera focussed on the viewing portal into the isolation chamber.

He’s standing there, watching me.  He doesn’t speak, unless it’s too quiet for the microphones to pick up.  His only gesture is to put one hand against the glass, fingers splayed, and that’s where I stopped the playback, struggling in between my gallops for the toilet to understand what that gesture might mean.

I sort of remember seeing him, but mostly the memories are of utter frustration.  Urquat was calling me like a magnet calls iron filings, filling my thoughts to the exclusion of practically everything else.  The female and the Big One understood, shared my desperate longing to be in Urquat, and I’d been taken away from them – taken away from Urquat, which had been so tantalisingly close for us all!

I didn’t know anything else.  I didn’t _want_ to know anything else.  I wanted to be with them again, finding Urquat where at last we would be happy, we would be at peace among our own people.

It was not to be.  Urquat is apparently a ruin, its people lost to history forever.  Even if I’d found my way there with the others, there was nothing waiting there for me but disappointment and loss.

_Disappointment and loss...._

I’m as clean as I’m going to get.  With a sigh, I wrap the towel around my body and stumble from the bathroom to sink down on the chair opposite the monitor.  At least for a couple of minutes I can relax and resume my interrogation of the scene that’s on display.

Playback is still halted.  He’s still standing there, gazing through the Plexiglas.  His right hand is motionless, frozen for my inspection.

Against my will, I can’t help but read into it some kind of caring.  That’s a gesture I’d have expected from Trip, or even from the captain, but not Hayes.

But could it have been something quite different – eagerness?  I’m the only one in between him and the command of _Enterprise_ ’s security, after all.  Maybe he was standing there thinking _If he stays like this, the captain will have no choice but to put me in charge._

He’s been trying to pick holes in my command arrangements from the start.  Oh, superficially respectful of course, _the current ones aren’t bad for a mere Fleeter I suppose_ , but still far too ready to press his own opinions as to how things could be done better.  If he was actually of a lower rank than I am I’d know exactly how to shut him up, but the plain fact is that he outranks me, and I’m in command only by grace and favour of the captain.  A situation which puts me in an extremely difficult position when it comes to telling him to button it, particularly when I have that adjuration to _take any of his opinions under advisement_ hampering me.

Sometimes I hate my own suspicious nature.  I listen to myself finding the worst possible reasons for that hand to have been where it was, and I’m ashamed of what I’ve become; surely I wasn’t always this cynical?  I wish I _could_ be less paranoid, more trusting.  But I’d defy anyone who’s seen as much of the underbelly of human nature as I have to be as trusting as, say, Trip used to be.

I’m not just suspicious; I’m afraid.  Here in the silence I can admit that to myself, at least for now, when my near escape from being transformed forever into some perpetually homesick alien entity has scared and sobered me into self-exploration on a scale in which I rarely indulge.  For the first time I have to acknowledge the fact that maybe I’m not the only one to have regrets about that night back in San Francisco; that perhaps – just perhaps – Hayes may look at me now and see something other than a monster from whose clutches he had the narrowest of escapes.

He was willing enough when he was drunk.  When he was sober, he fled.

Now, when I was a raving, disfigured, alien _creature_ , locked in an isolation chamber, he ...

... what?

I reach out gently and touch the image of that outstretched hand.  What had he meant by it?  Surely it had to mean _something...._

_If he stays like this, the captain will have to put me in charge._ Or,

_Malcolm, I wish I’d stayed._

The temptation to give in to the idea that it might be the latter is so overwhelming that I have to pull myself up sternly.  Wishful thinking is not something in which the ship’s Tactical Officer should indulge. 

Emotions are almost as much a mystery to me as they are to poor T'Pol, who at least has an excuse in being Vulcan.  I know how to arouse them in others, but I’m pathetically bad at reading the subtler indicators.  It’s like being able to look through a kaleidoscope and see only in greyscale; I get the idea that there are variations, but as for being able to interpret them accurately, well – I just live to be thankful I’m more accurate on a target range, that’s all.

He had his chance.  I wasn’t good enough for him then.  Why the heck should I delude myself I’m good enough for him now?  I’m the Navy-reject Limey whose command decisions have to be questioned, I’m the Fleeter lieutenant who gets to give him – a MACO major – orders.

_If he stays like this, the captain will have to put me in charge._

Of course that was what he wanted!  Hadn’t he made it clear that he wanted to run the whole bloody Security department like one of his damned MACO units?  I squashed the idea fast enough, but he’s never given up.  His respectfulness is only equalled by his determination.  I’m sure the determination is founded on an honest belief that his way is the right way, but it brings with it more than the suggestion that we only survived this long on sheer bloody luck, and that’s not the way I see it.  I see it that I’ve brought together an extraordinary team of extraordinary people who’ve worked damned hard to get where they are.  They’re mine, and I’m proud of them, and I’m not handing over the reins to Hayes, however bloody well-meaning he is with his improvements.

As for anything else....

_Wishful thinking_ , my inner voice jeers.  _You weren’t good enough then.  He took his chance and ran.  Why the hell should anything be different now?_

My fingers, however, are reluctant to leave the screen.  As gingerly as someone lifting the edge of a dressing off a life-threatening wound, I’m trying to see if there might be some way I could possibly just....

_ASK?_ screams the voice.  _For fuck’s sake.  What sort of pathetic little wanker do you want to look, then?  ‘Ooh, Major, you remember that night when I took you back to my place, and you ended up doing a runner, well I’ve always wondered...’  BLOODY GROW A PAIR, will you?_

I snatch my fingers back as though the screen has suddenly given me an electric shock.  It’s all too easy for me to imagine the derision in his eyes as the penny drops.  My whole soul recoils from the prospect of having to serve out the rest of the mission giving orders to a man who knows I’m a lovesick prat who never got over a rejection that happened nearly ten years ago.

The image is too brutal to endure.  I can’t risk it.  I _won’t_ risk it.  If that makes me seventy different sorts of a coward, well, so be it.  ‘He who fights and runs away / Lives to fight another day.’  No ‘exiting in an ambulance’ for me, thank you very much – not on the evidence of one video still.

Subterranean rumblings suggest that yet another trip to the toilet will shortly be required.  Weary and heartsick, I hunch the towel more closely around myself; the vomiting and purging have drained my body heat along with everything else, and I’m suddenly almost shivering with the cold.  But whether the cold is purely physical, I have no way of knowing.  Maybe it goes far deeper than that, down into the cold places where someone I used to be is smiling with wicked irony at my weakness.  Jag didn’t do love.  He knew what it would cost.

I forgot that in a moment of carelessness, and I’ve paid for it ever since.

I won’t pay for it again.


	7. Hayes

“What about Graylik, sir?  He’ll tell them about _Enterprise_.”

Two sentences.  Not even long sentences.  Nine words in total.

But hell, how much your understanding of a guy can change in the space of nine words.  Words I possibly wasn’t meant to hear – I don’t know if either of the people involved in the conversation realized I was close enough to overhear, even though they kept their voices low.

Right up till that point, I’d had Reed down as a straight-up, by-the-book, honest-and-honorable Starfleet officer.  But almost before the first four words were out of his mouth, I knew exactly what he was asking and what he was suggesting and, more than either of those things, what he was volunteering to do.

I’m not soft, and I’d like to think I’m not easily shocked.  But I was fairly floored by the calm, soft precision of the way he said it.  No hesitation.  No shrinking.  No ‘Hey, he’s a nice guy and I wish we didn’t have to even think about this’.

He was absolutely right, of course.  I’d come to exactly the same conclusion and was prepared to take exactly the same course of action.  But I’m a soldier, and I do what’s necessary.  He’s a guy who sits at a console and presses buttons.  He may kill people – those cannons and torpedoes pack a hell of a punch, and I’m damn sure he’s got more than a few nicks on his tally-stick if he cared to keep count – but that’s not the same thing as actually killing someone while you look them in the eye.  Someone whose name you know, who you’ve actually spoken to.  

That’s different.  I’d wondered, occasionally, if he knew just _how_ different.

Those two sentences told me that he does know.  More: that he has enough cold-blooded resolve to do it without a second’s hesitation if that’s what it takes.  Even more than that, perhaps: that he’s far from the moral innocent I’ve always thought him.

Down here, at the weapons facility or whatever it is, there seems a sort of … tightly-restrained savagery about him.  For all his cool manner, he wants to strike out.  He even dared to argue with the captain, which is something I never thought I’d witness; reminding him of the seven million dead.  That, I’ll guess, is very much on Commander Tucker’s behalf. 

And then, almost in the same breath, he offered to murder Graylik in cold blood if the captain gave him the word.

_Enterprise_ was undoubtedly the key word out of those nine.  ‘He’ll tell them about _Enterprise_.’  And Malcolm’s not allowing that.  The flat note of his voice made that crystal clear, to me if not to the captain.

Archer wasn’t having it then, though maybe it was the reminder about those seven million casualties that made him give the order for me to lay down blast suppressors – he was keeping his options open about sending down the two spatial charges that would flatten the place.  We had explosives with us, but now that I’d checked the place out I thought that two delivered straight from the ship would be the best option; primarily because the instant we’d seen the place blow we could be out of here, and no-one any the wiser.

The captain’s still inside, talking to Graylik some more.  Trying – if I know him at all – to find some way of making this visit pay off without resorting to arson and murder.

Malcolm and I are back on guard outside, patrolling the area around the house to make sure no-one approaches it unobserved and catches the captain inside it.   We try to move soundlessly, and he’s good at it, as stealthy as a shadow.  I’m still keenly aware of where he is at any given moment, but even though everything seems quiet enough we don’t speak.  Even the softest murmurs carry further than you might think on such a silent night as this is, as I discovered a few minutes ago.

_‘What about Graylik, sir?’_

It’s set me wondering exactly what lies behind that ‘Classified’ tag on his Starfleet files.  For sure he didn’t get that tone of voice carrying out computer simulated attacks on hostile ships.

Would he really commit cold-blooded murder if it came to it?  If Archer decided there was no other option?

Obviously it’s always been a given that if detected we’d have to defend ourselves, and in the heat of the moment you can’t always limit the damage you do.  If it’s a choice between killing or being captured, for me there _is_ no choice.  But that’s the ‘heat of the moment’ thing.  There had been no heat at all in Reed’s voice when he made that … suggestion.  Offer.  Whatever it should be called.  It had been made with chilling deliberation.

He reaches the far end of the area we’ve established as our patrol, and turns without haste, evidently listening intently.  The white light of the moon behind which _Enterprise_ is sheltering washes down his face, making it a mask of sharp planes and black shadows.  It dawns on me how much gray is his element; he has a trick of melting out of view, for all the English military air he projects.  Back then, too, he’d melted out of view; experience and hindsight revealed to me long ago how cleverly and deliberately he’d ensured I shouldn’t know where he lived.

Gray… His eyes are gray.  Most times these days when I look into them they’re the gray of duranium shutters, locking me out.  Now and again they’re the gray of castle walls, with murder holes built above the iron portcullis, and at those times I can almost smell the rancid stink of boiling oil waiting to pour down on my head if I take one step closer.

But they could wear another aspect.  I’d seen it – seen them, seen _him,_ fiery and flirty and fierce, gripping me as though he wanted to devour me piecemeal.  I’d felt that hard mouth fastened on mine, that lean, wiry body pressed against me in desperate hunger.  The gray had blazed then, unhooded on famine….

He notices me watching him.  He pauses, and across a couple of meters of charged space our eyes meet.

Something happens.  I swear, something changes.  But next moment a wink of light on the scanner he’s holding alerts both of us to danger: biosigns approaching.  They won’t be anyone from _Enterprise_ , so they’re hostiles.  Perhaps Reptilians, from that ship that just landed.

We both slide into cover.  Even as he settles soundlessly among the shadows beside me, Malcolm’s whispering into his communicator, warning the captain.

Two Xindi, probably workers from the facility, walk up to Graylik’s house.  There’s no tension in their voices or the way they walk; they don’t even look around, though the brisk knock on the door suggests they’re not just on a social call.

We know Graylik’s in there, and the captain too.  But though one of the visitors shouts out, and knocks a second time, there’s no answer, and after a moment the two of them look at each other like they’re a bit puzzled and walk away again.

I want to think that if there wasn’t an element of puzzlement to us too in that silence from inside, we’d crouch for a little longer side by side, so close that I can feel the warmth of his body along my arm.  Up on the ridge the captain was between us.  Now it’s just him and me; but duty is a merciless taskmaster.  The instant we judge it safe, we’re both up and darting across the cleared space to the door.  The strain on Malcolm’s face dies a little as the captain answers his soft knock almost immediately.

Throughout the rest of the mission I’m convinced that something’s still different between us.  For the first time there’s a sense of _us_ rather than _him and me_.  It even feels natural to speak up in support of his murmured protest to the captain when Graylik’s allowed to leave, unharmed and unsupervised.  He and I are united in our suspicion if nothing else; but then, we’re in the business of seeing the worst-case scenario and taking steps to make sure it doesn’t turn into reality.  I don’t think the captain is impressed by our cynicism, and he sure doesn’t care for me arguing in support of Malcolm’s case without asking permission, but I don’t care.  I’m not here to buy into his naïveté, and I’m certainly not going to do anything to disturb this first, tenuous tendril of connection between me and the man who’s haunted my dreams for the past ten years.

There’s a fragile peace in the shuttle as we return to the ship, with the captain at the helm.  Malcolm’s at the secondary console, and doesn’t look around, but I want to feel that there’s no longer that sense of freezing withdrawal.  On the few occasions he speaks, he seems relaxed; he even ventures a little smile in response to one of Archer’s comments.  As for me, I’m glad we got that tracking device into the kemocite consignment and even gladder that we got off the planet without incident, and I can’t help but feel a small trickle of hope that he feels pretty much the same.  We co-operated, we talked the same language and saw things the same way; surely he can’t go on holding that wall up forever?

_Enterprise_ comes around to pick us up – evidently the Reptilian ship has taken its goods and gone its way.  When Ensign Sato informs us, just as the shuttle bay door opens, that the risk we took at the end was for nothing after all, and that the tracking device evidently can’t follow the enemy through one of those portals of theirs, I’m not the only one to look surprised and dismayed.  Seems like we both felt that Fate had finally decided to cut us a break.

The captain, however, seems remarkably unperturbed, even shooting a crinkled smile in Malcolm’s direction.  “I’d have liked it to have worked, of course I would,” he says gently.  “But I found that the Xindi aren’t all the monsters we’d made them out to be.  There are good and bad, just like there are on Earth.  And we’ve still got that faulty kemocite on board that ship.  If we did nothing else, we bought ourselves some time.”

“Sir.” Malcolm smoothes out the look of consternation as best he can, but there are still twin furrows of concern between his eyebrows.  He’d had the smell of the prey in his nostrils at last, and my little dark predator hates to lose his quarry.

I was his quarry, once.

Still, I’m a pretty decent stalker myself, when I put my mind to it.  I have all the patience in the world, and for all that he’s the ship’s Tactical Officer I haven’t gotten where I am without getting a pretty thorough grasp of strategy and tactics on my own account.  I made a mistake then and I’m not making another.

The shuttle settles on to the floor of the bay and Malcolm rises, saying something about needing to get back to the Armoury.

“Sure.”  The captain used to be a test pilot.  It shows in the deft, almost absent-minded ease with which he starts going through the post-flight procedure.

“I’ll get back to my unit, sir.”  I’m already on my feet.

The look Reed shoots at me is hard to decipher.  He’s wary, but what else? 

We leave the shuttle side by side.  Probably it’s deliberate that he chooses to use the side door rather than the roof exit, because that would mean one of us had to precede the other and as the junior officer I’d have ceded that to him.  I haven’t yet had the opportunity to follow him up a ladder, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that the view would be just glorious.

As we reach the corridor outside, he pauses, almost as if hesitating over whether to speak.  Instead I beat him to it.

“Seems like we make a great team when we try, sir.”  My tone’s light enough for him to read it as a jokey sort of compliment for the fact that we took the captain down there and brought him back up in one piece, but I hold his gaze for just a second, trying to reach past the duranium shields I know are ready to slam down.

I’m sure he changes what he was going to say.  He blinks twice, and I get the feeling that he’s thinking furiously.  Finally he speaks, slowly as if he’s building a bridge of straws across an ice crevasse.

“It’s always been my aim for my team to co-operate with each other at maximum efficiency,” he says carefully.  For once, his eyes are meeting mine without evasion, but though he’s trying to keep his face impassive, there’s the faintest crease between his brows; he knows, just as I know, that each of us has lethal capability over the other.

“Mine too, Lieutenant.  Sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you want it to the first time, but – that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying again.”

He understands.  I know he understands.  For just a moment he stares at the deck plating as though he’s trying to read the future in it.

There’s a terrible little silence.  It feels as though the whole ship is holding its breath.

Then he exhales.  Even before he speaks, I know the verdict has gone against me; when his eyes come up again, they’re as sad as they are implacable.  “In the circumstances, Major, you should understand one thing. 

“It’s probably just as well that the ‘first time’ didn’t work out – the way either of us wanted it to.”

I catch my breath.  For all the words of denial, he’s finally admitted he remembers – and cares.

“I won’t accept that.” I take a rapid step closer to him, which he watches with the measured gaze of a swordsman.

His smile is as soft and bitter as the core of a rotten lemon.  “You’re not the first person to say so.  They all learned the hard way.”

Of course he’s had lovers, before and since.  So have I.  Why the hell does he think that matters?  “Wait,” I demand, though he hasn’t moved.  “At least give me an explanation.  What do you mean ‘in the circumstances’? 

“And don’t even think about giving me some crap about the regulations,” I add, seeing his eyes narrow.  “If you don’t know that at least twelve couples on board this ship are sharing bunks on a regular basis, presumably with no loss to their efficiency because _otherwise_ , Lieutenant, you’d have had any or all of them up on a disciplinary, then you’re not doing your job as Head of Security.”

“Fourteen, actually,” he says with a fleeting, hollow smirk.  “Though that’s including the visit of one of your corporals to Crewman de la Haye’s cabin last night, which may or may not be the first of many.”

“One of my–?”  I shut my mouth with a snap.  Not because it’s none of my business, but because if he knows more about where one of my MACOs spent last night than I do, he’s _too_ damn good at his job.

It’s worth the embarrassment to see him smile.  Just for a split second, he’s loving it, almost laughing aloud at the fact that he’s got me and we both know it.  And for that second I catch a glimpse of the man I walked away from in the apartment that day, and the sheer joy of seeing him again drives me forward even before I know I’m moving.

The shutters come down like emergency bulkheads sealing off a decompressing compartment.  He actually retreats, and though he doesn’t put up a hand to stop me touching him, I know that if I even try it he’ll attack me.

The disappointment is so bitter I want to punch something.  Instead I just stare at him, trying to figure out what the heck he’s afraid of.  Because he’s as scared as a cornered animal, whether he knows it or not, whether he’ll admit it or not.  Trouble is, he’s so scared he can’t think of any other reaction than fighting his way out, and time was when I’d have taken my chances on that, but that was before _What about Graylik, sir?_ Now, with him in this mood, the parameters have shifted.  He’s… incalculable.  I can’t think of how to reach him without putting an end for good and all to any hope I might ever have that he might trust me enough to give me that second chance.

I wait for the few seconds it takes me to be sure that when I speak my voice will be even.  “That’s your take on it, Lieutenant,” I say at last, “but in fairness I’d ask you to at least explain your decision.  Surely I have a right to that.”

I watch the bitter little smile that says _So had I, but you just ran anyway_ , and I know he knows both of us are remembering the time I ran roughshod over his rights.

The irony is that I could pull rank on him and demand an explanation, but of all the mistakes I could make that would be the worst.  Maybe it’s some kind of atonement to him that I’m simply asking, giving him the dignity of being able to refuse.  I can only hope so.

There’s a long silence. 

Finally, he breaks it.  His voice is low and steady.  “It would have been a mistake then and it would be a worse one now, Major.  We both need to keep our minds on the mission.”

“Is that what they teach you in Starfleet, Lieutenant?  That having nothing to care about makes you a better officer?  That not being human makes you better at your job?”

He smiles again at that, but this time it’s a secretive, almost cruel smile that makes the hair prickle on the back of my neck.  I think he’s going to say something, but he clearly thinks better of it and just shrugs – an action that in itself is so unlike his usual rigidly disciplined stiffness on board ship that for a moment he looks like someone else altogether.

Well.  If that’s the shield he’s going to hide behind, there’s not a lot I can do about it.  But he’d better not think it’s a hiding place that will give him all the protection he might hope for.  Because I care about the mission too, and I happen to believe that even officers function all the better for having a little joy in their lives.  And he still hasn’t said why it would have been a mistake back then, and until he comes up with a valid explanation for that then I’m not buying it.  I’m not buying it at _all_.

No need to let him know that, though.  I shrug in my turn.  “If you’re sure that’s the way you want it…  Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, sir.”

My tone is as indifferent as I can make it, my face the same, but I’m actually watching him carefully.  He can’t quite hide the tiny flicker of – disappointment?  He expected me to put up more resistance than this, though he schools his face fast enough into the appropriate neutrality as he turns away, saying he’s got some work to do in the Armory, even though shift has finished for both of us.

But every mission requires some degree of patience.  And now that I know he’s not indifferent to me, that he _does_ remember and he _does_ care, I’m going to be as patient as I need to be.  And as astute as I need to be.  His best refuge is to forget I exist, but I’m not going to allow him that.

From here on in, I’m going to be Malcolm Reed’s personal pain in the ass.


	8. Reed

+ _Personal log, Stardate 26 December, 2153._ +

+ _I was aware from the start of the mission that adjusting to the presence of MACOs on board ship would be challenging for me._ +

(Make that ‘I’d have bet my next twenty years’ pay that the arsehole in charge of them would make it his personal business to make my life hell’.)

+ _But after a period of adjustment, we reached what seemed to be a satisfactory balance of affairs.  It was probably not easy for Major Hayes to be effectively demoted to act as my junior officer, but it has to be said that he handled it in a very professional manner._ +

(At least till the day we visited that kemocite refinery.  After which, he seemed to turn into the subordinate from hell.)

+ _It_ _was almost inevitable that we would have differing views on the best way of keeping the officers and crew of Enterprise in the optimum state of readiness.  I made it clear from the start that I had established what I considered to be the most appropriate arrangements, particularly as regards training drills.  My own team are at the peak of fitness and readiness for action, and I consider that the twice-weekly drills on top of their standard daily duties are quite sufficient.  As for the senior officers, I carry out training sessions weekly in the gymnasium as part of standard duties, and if I judge any of them in need of additional coaching I am perfectly capable of arranging for this to happen.  That said, most of them choose to attend the Security drills from time to time of their own accord, keeping their skills appropriately polished._ +

(So what the _bloody sodding hell_ has made Major ‘I Am A Professional Soldier and I Know Best’ Hayes suddenly decide to go over my head and straight to the captain with this damned idea of his to put my team, _my_ team!, _and_ all the senior officers, _regardless_ of all their other duties, which go _bloody hours over shift some days_ , though some jumped-up jack-shit of a MACO training programme, supervised by himself and the rest of his rats?

Could he think of any _better_ way to get the captain thinking I’m a failure, that the skills that have kept this ship and crew intact for three years aren’t good enough?

‘The MACO’s tactics and technology are two, three years beyond Starfleet’s’.  Captain, you have no idea how much I longed to spit it in your face that they’re the years we’ve spent exploring the galaxy, and that even out here I keep in touch with R&D back at home.  I gave up a long time ago trying to interest you in the minutiae of the improvements I’ve made to the ship’s armaments; Trip knows (or did, when he used to be almost as interested in the periodicals as I was), but it was painfully clear that you regarded my interest in weaponry as just another facet of my ‘paranoia’.  So I soldiered on silently and alone, doing my job of keeping eighty-two people and a dog safe.  And that’s what I get for my trouble.

‘Tactics and technology’!  I’ll be damned if Hayes can teach me anything about what to do at close quarters when someone’s trying to plant a knife in my gut.  As for the technology, well doesn’t he think my security clearance, my Starfleet contacts, keep me up to date with anything the damned MACOs have?  Out here it’s not so much the gun that keeps you safe, it’s the brain behind the gun, that tells you if, when and where to fire it.  A brain with experience, the sort of experience we’ve got and the MACOs haven’t.  So it’s my job, _mine_ , to evaluate any ‘tactics and technology’ Hayes may have that might come in useful for my team, and as for the senior officers _, I’m_ the man who makes decisions about compulsory training being added to their already heavy burdens.  Me, not Matthew bloody Hayes!)

+ _In view of the Major’s hitherto impeccable adherence to the proper channels of authority, I must admit that I was both surprised and displeased by the discovery that he had approached the captain on the subject of a change he contemplated making to the training regime, not only for the ship’s security team but also for the ship’s officers, who in my opinion would have far more pressing duties in the event of a security incident than to become embroiled in protective measures.  That, after all, is the reason the MACOs were brought on board: to provide the protection that would allow the ship’s personnel to continue carrying out their ordinary functions._

_+To approach the captain in this way was, according to the Starfleet regulations, a serious breach of protocol, and I cannot believe the major was unaware of this.  As his senior officer for the duration of the mission, he should have afforded me the courtesy of discussing it first with me.  As I am as yet unaware of any details of this ‘training’ it is impossible to say whether I would have agreed, but it was my decision to make.  Now it has been taken out of my hands; the captain has agreed with Major Hayes that the training should be implemented, and all that remains to me is to decide when and how the sessions should be fitted into the ship’s schedule.  I nevertheless intend to ensure that it places as little additional burden as possible on the ship’s personnel, who are already under the inevitable strain such a mission places on us all._ +

(And not, whatever he may think, to buckle under tamely to this latest blatant attempt of Hayes’ to take over my role as head of Security.

_Bastard!_ )

I assign the recording the usual security code before saving and closing it.  Hayes is off duty now and probably asleep, but he’ll keep; I dash off an order to him to report to me first thing tomorrow, and he’ll get it as soon as he wakes.  In the meantime, my own shift is finished, and I have to shower, change and eat.  Though anger always puts me off my food, and right now I feel as though I couldn’t choke down a mouthful.

Still, there may be something in Mess that tempts me; our supply of treats is small and strictly rationed, but every now and again Chef raises my flagging spirits by producing something wonderful with pineapple in it.  For a moment I allow myself to hope, before doggedly accepting the fact that the way today is going, even if he did it’s a working certainty that just as I get to the dessert cabinet some bugger will snaffle the last piece.

If it’s Hayes I’ll bloody well put him up on a charge.  There must be some way I can work ‘nicking the last piece of pineapple cobbler’ into a breach of the regulations.  How about ‘having already pissed your senior officer off royally, this was adding egregious insult to grievous injury’?

Nah.  Doubt if the captain would buy it.  He’d probably pat the offender on the head and suggest eating it with chocolate custard or some other sacrilegious piece of effrontery: ‘Eating pineapple cobbler with ordinary custard is _so_ last year.  Just ignore old Malcolm, he’s _terribly_ old-fashioned’.

Bloody hell, just what I need: Captain Archer turning into a food-fashionista.

Banishing this horrid image with an effort, I get myself showered and dry enough to drag on clean clothes that will do well enough for a visit to the Mess before I betake myself to the gym.

En route to the domain of daily recycled meatloaf and occasional pineapple, I run into Trip.  He’s worked long past shift hours (again) and by the state of his uniform he’s been in the Jeffries tubes; presumably working on something up close and personal, because his hair is dank with sweat from the heat in there and his face is still streaked with rivulets of perspiration.  He looks absolutely exhausted.  This, I think, is one of the officers Hayes wants to force into participating in his damned MACO training schedule.  I’d be interested to know if he’d still think it was a good idea if he was standing here now, looking at the bloke whose responsibility it is to keep the damned ship running and who’s a bloody short step away from collapse as it is.  Twice in the last month I’ve exercised my authority as Head of my department to send Trip away from the scheduled exercise periods to get some rest (even if it’s just lying down on his bunk), because I can see that he’s utterly unfit for the sheer physical demands of a workout on top of everything else.

“How’s it going, Trip?” I ask, because in my usual tongue-tied way I can’t think of anything more intelligent to say, and I know one of us has to say _something_.

“Oh, you know,” he answers, with a weary shrug.  “Just keepin’ ‘er goin’.”

I want to say _You should get more sleep_ , but I close my lips with the words unsaid.  I’m not entirely sure what’s going on between him and T'Pol with these ‘neuropressure’ sessions, but my curiosity is piqued.  Especially now that rumour has it he’s started it with Corporal Cole as well.  Amanda Cole is an extremely attractive woman, and you’d have to be blind not to see the come-hitherly looks she’s been bestowing on our Commander Tucker lately.

No wonder the man’s exhausted.  I’m just surprised he’s not smiling more. 

But for the presence of a certain MACO major I’d probably be green with envy.  As it is, I’m so preoccupied with my stealthy war with this bane of my existence that if I were to discover that Trip had set up a harem with forty members of the crew I’d probably just rearrange the rosters to make sure Hayes didn’t find any reason to snipe at our lack of preparedness in the event of an emergency because half of the ships complement had been shagging the Chief Engineer instead of attending his damned training sessions.

Besides, if Trip is managing to snatch a little illicit joy out of something, bloody good luck to him. 

Instinct and – I’ll admit it – smarting pride urge me to tell him immediately about this latest blessing to be bestowed on us all by our good Major: ‘Hey, Trip, better not head for the showers just yet, Hayes thinks you ought to spend a couple of hours learning to be a MACO first.’  I can imagine his reaction would blister the paint off the walls.  But however angry I may be, that’s not the professional way to go about it, least of all when I have no definite idea of the shape and extent of the additional burden that’s about to be placed on his already overburdened shoulders.

First of all I have to have a little chat with my guardian angel and establish exactly when these training sessions are going to take place that he’s circumvented my authority to instigate.  And during that conversation I’m going to make it plain that I understand exactly what he’s done and that I don’t appreciate it in the least.  I may be powerless to stop it (being under orders to _take his opinions under advisement_ ), but I can bloody well exercise my right to say when these sessions will take place, and, unlike Major Hayes, I have regard to _all_ aspects of officers’ duties.  I’m here to protect them and, if needs be, protect them from him. 

And if he locks horns with me on this, he’ll damn well live to regret it.


	9. Hayes

I know as soon as I open the message that the trouble I anticipated is about to materialize.

Reed’s communications are always short and to the point, but this one was brief to the point of insult.  I can almost feel the fury with which his finger jabbed the ‘send’ command.

Still, I can’t complain that I haven’t earned it.  When I went to put my proposals to Captain Archer I knew exactly what I was doing, and I was confident that the appropriate retribution would be forthcoming.  I guess I was actually counting on it.

Seems the captain wasted no time in putting the facts to his Tactical Officer.  And I did my level best to get him to buy into the idea, so I’d imagine he didn’t go roundabout in putting Reed in the picture.  I’d imagine it wasn’t received too well, but to go by the tone of this curt message that ‘we have an issue to discuss’, I suspect that my idea has been adopted, probably against Reed’s advice.

So.  Looks like I’d better prepare for battle.

The condemned man always eats a hearty meal, so I don’t deviate from my usual custom of meeting my team leaders in the Mess Hall to discuss the day’s program over breakfast.  We usually do a little target practice first thing on Fridays, but today I tell Mackenzie that she’ll have to take charge, as I have something to talk over with Lieutenant Reed first.

She makes the appropriate response, but I see the faint grimaces of sympathy around the table; they don’t envy me that.  As we’re all still off duty I don’t reprimand them for this evidence of disrespect to a senior officer, but they get my warning glance and their faces instantly become wooden.

Before reporting for duty on the Bridge first thing in the morning, he always visits the Armory and gets the reports from Ensign Gomez, head of Gamma Shift.  This is usually a short enough business but he leaves additional time just in case there’s anything she feels the need to talk over with him before she stands down.  I should be able to intercept him on the way down there, and the walk should give us all the time necessary for the ‘discussion’; having it in such a public place will prevent it from getting out of hand, and he won’t be able to accuse me of having tried to shirk the confrontation I’ve brought about.

My plan works perfectly.  I catch him just as he’s about to enter the turbo-lift to F Deck, and the door has hardly shut enclosing the two of us before he slams his hand on the stop button and raps out, “I believe, Major, that you consider my training arrangements for the crew to be inadequate.”

He’s rigid with controlled fury, but I refuse to be intimidated.  “With respect, sir, that isn’t what I mean at all.  I’m sure you don’t consider that anything at all is so good it can’t be improved upon.”

His glare has been focused on the door, but at this he transfers it to me.  It’s like having one of the phase cannons swing around to point straight in my direction.  “If you recall, Major, I was ordered to ‘take your opinions under advisement’.  To the best of my knowledge and belief, that involves my being informed of your opinions _before_ you take them to the captain and have me forced to implement them.”

“In my professional judgment, sir, the ship’s personnel need the additional training,” I say stubbornly.  “What they’ve received so far is excellent, better than I’d’ve expected in actual fact, but for the safety of the mission it needs to go up a notch.  And having the officers make their own decisions about whether to attend is not appropriate.  They _need_ the expertise.”

Flashpoint.  “Major Hayes, you are not authorized to make decisions about what the officers of this ship ‘need’ as regards defence training.  As head of this department, that decision is mine, and until or unless the captain decides to relieve me of that responsibility I’ll thank you to remember that.  Is that clear?”

I snap to attention.  “Perfectly, sir.”

He glowers at me as he pushes the button to allow the elevator to proceed.  “But since you’ve seen fit to force my hand, it seems that all that needs to be established is exactly when these training sessions are to take place.  Unless, of course, you’ve already decided that with the captain as well.”

“No, sir, I haven’t.”  I pause, though I’ve already examined the schedules to determine where the training could be best fitted in, and as the elevator discharges us into the corridor I make my suggestion.  “Okay, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday.  How does oh-eight hundred sound?”

Evidently it doesn’t sound good at all.  He hits back with preferring to train in the evenings because people are more loosened up by then.  Personally I think they’re also more tired, but I already know he’s not in the mood for giving any more than he has to, so I offer to make one of the three weekly sessions in the evening and two in the morning.

_Thwack._ He returns serve with ‘two in the morning and one in the evening’.

I then make a tactical blunder.  Probably because part of me can’t believe he’s being such a stubborn asshole and part of me honestly sympathizes with the predicament he’s in, and yet another part of me regrets the fact that for the good of the mission I’ve had to hammer yet another nail into the coffin of my hopes.  He has enough reasons to resent me on a personal level, and now I’ve insulted his professional competence by going over his head to the captain.  That wasn’t how I meant it – in all sincerity my only concern was the ship’s safety – but it’s certainly how he’s received it.

“You’re not making this very easy,” I blurt out.

Well, hell.  Like he has any reason to _want_ to make it easy, now I’ve usurped his authority and made it look like I think he can’t do his job.  The exchange that follows is short and sharp, but though he controls his voice and never for an instant loses the discipline expected of an officer, his eyes are icy with rage.

Suddenly, however, the things we’re saying have this weird hollow echo.  Like we’re talking about something completely different.

_If I’d have come to you first you’d have turned me down flat._

_You’re probably right, but that decision was mine to make._

_I didn’t mean to deprive you of the opportunity._

_I think that’s exactly what you meant to do._

I’ve wished, ever since that day, that I’d acted differently.  But he’s right: I did mean to deprive him of the opportunity, that time at least.  I was too much of a coward to face him, too afraid he’d send me to the right-about, too afraid I’d blown the chance of a lifetime.  I didn’t want to give him the chance to tell me what he thought of my stupidity, and so I ran out on him.

I want to believe I hurt him by that as much as I hurt myself.  Surely if it didn’t hurt he wouldn’t still be this angry.

But whether or not, the corridor isn’t the place to start an inquest.  So I take refuge in the standard response, one he won’t be able to contest because it addresses the one passion we do share right now: “Whatever you might think, sir, my only concern is the successful outcome of this mission.”

He glares at me, unappeased.  “As is mine.  Tuesdays and Fridays, _in the evenings_.”

And without giving me the chance to respond, he turns around and strides off towards the Armory.  The tone of his voice said that this was his final decision, and I know that if I push the issue any further he won’t forgive it.

So, Tuesdays and Fridays it is, and presumably he means starting tonight.  Mentally I start shifting my schedules to accommodate it, shrugging philosophically at the loss of Wednesday.  I know, just as he knows, that he could have cut it to just one day a week.  Maybe we both just took a tiny step forward in the art of compromise.

Maybe.


	10. Reed

Oh, this _is_ going to be a fun day.

The alpha shift officers already have a self-defence session scheduled for mid-morning that the MACOs have been ‘invited’ to attend in order to give us the benefit of their experience.  This was the captain’s idea, and I agreed to it, even if I didn’t knock anyone over in my transports of enthusiasm.  We’ve all been sparring partners since day one, and to a certain degree it gets stale; there’s only so much variety of opposition, and it’s all too easy to get complacent and stop putting in the effort because you learn what each partner will do and how to deal with it with the minimum expenditure of energy.

So in that respect I understand why, despite exhibiting a certain amount of nerves (in view of the size of most of their new opponents, entirely understandable), my fellow officers seem more excited than anything else by the prospect of trying out against strange opposition.

As their teacher, I’m glad they feel enough confidence to regard it as an adventure as they assemble in the gym where the training mats are laid out ready.  I just wish that I didn’t detect an air of smirking complacency among the waiting MACOs.  It gives me a sinking feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with indigestion.

I’ve never skimped on self-defence training.  More than probably anyone else on board, I know the value of it.  But these are Starfleet officers, experts in their own fields – not one of which includes knocking eight bells out of some muscle-bound oaf who could run up twenty flights of stairs with a loaded supermarket trolley under each arm and still not be out of breath.

I know T'Pol can take on any of the MACOs and wipe the floor with them.  I don’t have to worry about her, at least.  Out of the rest, Travis is the one I know will make the best showing.  The others are average to good, but he’s very good.  On his day, he can give me a run for my money.  So I draw a silent breath of relief when he takes on the chap I’ve already marked down as being the best of the opposition.

The rest are fairly well matched, considering; with resignation I see that Trip has coincidentally ended up paired with Corporal Cole, whose smile has an element of ‘cat’ not unconnected with ‘cream’.  Oh well, as long as they actually get some experience of self-defence out of all the wrestling and panting, that’s as much as I ask; though if the rumours are true, our Chief Engineer is likely to put up as much resistance to the delectable Miss Cole as I would to a heaped bowl of pineapple crumble.

As jointly in charge, Hayes and I do not participate.  We watch, me in silence and he calling out comments and advice; once again we are polar opposites. 

My fears regarding Trip’s fighting spirit are proven well-grounded almost at once.  In a depressingly short space of time he hits the mat.  His opponent sportingly helps him up, though I am unsure quite how entirely professional her conduct is when she takes the opportunity to slap him on the bum as she does so.

That I am not the only one to observe this little intimacy is clear the next moment when – completely against anything I could have predicted – a break in T'Pol’s guard earns her the due reward of a punch that sends her to the floor.  Fortunately her clearly startled opponent doesn’t make the mistake of slapping _her_ bottom as he helps her up; presumably he has a healthy desire not to have his arm ripped out of its socket for his trouble.

Travis, luckily, is doing a better job of upholding the good name of Starfleet.  Even Hayes delivers due praise, and I look on with pride that I do my best to conceal as he more than holds the upper hand in his bout.

Sadly, this state of affairs doesn’t last.  The MACO’s superior training tells, and eventually Travis hits the mat – hard.  So hard, in fact, that blood is leaking from his cut lip when he stands up, though with his natural good grace he congratulates the victor on a good match.

It seems that Hayes regards this kind of injury as par for the course.  I don’t.  As he calls a break, I call a halt, and I don’t give a damn that it’s bad leadership for us to be seen to disagree over a decision.  For a man who only this morning claimed that all he’s interested in is the success of the mission, he seems astonishingly unconcerned for the welfare of the best helmsman on board, if not one of the best in the Fleet;  I’d say _the_ best, and he probably will be one day, but right now he lacks the sheer hours of experience clocked up by test pilots like Captain Archer and his old sparring partner Commander Robinson.  Captain Archer, however, has far too much responsibility to be considered in the light of a helmsman, and so Travis is an irreplaceable asset whom I for one am duty-bound to protect; unlike the esteemed Major, who apparently considers him in the light of a crash dummy for MACO workouts.  

At least Hayes has the discipline to submit to my decision.  Fortunately for them, the members of his squad don’t wait for his confirmation of my orders before they file out; one flicker of an eye in his direction and I’d have had the offender doing burpees till they puked.  My old PE teacher’s fondness for that particular form of discipline gave me an excellent insight into how effective it is, and for all the MACOs’ vaunted physical fitness I’ll bet even they wouldn’t cross me again once they’d done a full hour of it.

The brief exchange of views that follows as soon as the gym is empty should effectively ensure that from now on the MACOs will have regard to _my_ opinions on the limits of a joint sparring bout rather than Hayes’.  But as I walk away, reflecting grimly that later on we have the first of these bloody ‘training sessions’ that I was coerced into accepting, I realise that this victory of mine may well be fleeting.  Tonight the advantage will lie with the opposition, and I’m in no doubt that my nemesis will take full advantage of it. 

I’ve seen the specs for some of the hardware they’ve brought on board: the latest edition pulse rifles, pulled straight off the R&D boards and into the squad’s hands for specialist training as soon as they were confirmed as part of the mission.  Almost from the word ‘go’ I’ve intended to make time to get my hands on one, but somehow something always seemed to intervene.  They’ve a training model they’ve brought along, and I can guess who’ll be the first victim set up to demonstrate his incompetence with it in front of his own people who think he’s a marksman.

I get into the turbo-lift, and just for a moment, safe from prying eyes, I drop my forehead against the wall and let out a sigh that seems to come from the bottom of my lungs.  Hayes isn’t the enemy; the Xindi are.  And yet God help me, I can’t seem to control my reaction to him.  I have to keep fighting.  I have to.  Because once I weaken, once I stop, I...

_Bloody little whinging coward, get a grip!_

My father’s voice sounds in my ears.  The rough surface of a hawser slips through my hands, burning them.  I know perfectly well how to handle a boat, even in a sea as rough as this, but I’ve slipped on the wet decking, and only a grab at the rope saved me from pitching overboard. The storm-dark sea slaps at my face, and I draw in a breath, suddenly choking and sick with terror.  I’m wearing a lifejacket, but that fact doesn’t even touch my consciousness.  Water is underneath me, inches away.  Waiting.

Failure is not an option.


	11. Cole

He’s cute.

Commander Tucker, I mean, of course.

You don’t think I meant Lieutenant Reed, did you?  Jeez.  He’s about as cute as a Komodo dragon, and half as friendly.

Though even after this morning, when they had that spat over the training, I’m a little surprised that the Major is putting him up to something he’s bound to fail at.   The boss isn’t usually vindictive, and he knows better than any of us that for all our expertise with weapons, even we took time to get used to handling the new rifle.  So handing it to the Komodo (sorry, the lieutenant) and expecting him to get a half-decent score the first time he pulls the trigger is a little unfair.

At least, that’s the way I see it.

Commander Tucker sees it that way too, I guess.  Without exception the Fleeters look on with sullen sympathy as their boss misses the fast-moving target again and again.  They know he’s been set up and they resent it.  When he finally steps aside, pale with mortification at scoring only four hits at level two, and the major brags about my holding the record with fourteen hits at level four, and then condescendingly recommends he schedule a little time for practice, I’m honestly surprised he manages to stay silent.  The flesh around his lips is bleached white, and his nod is little more than a jerk of the head, but he manages.

The atmosphere after that is horribly uncomfortable all round.  We MACOs naturally enjoy getting the upper hand over Fleeters at anything, but the sight of Commander Tucker’s normally good-humored face dark with resentment as he steps up to take the next turn with the practice rifle is a marker that the tribal loyalties of the Starfleet team have been roused.  Never a good thing, in any situation.

Now, we’re supposed – I say ‘supposed’ – to be trying to get along, aside from the inevitable prods and pokes between Squids and Sharks, but the not-so-subtle tensions between our respective heads are not making that easy.  Like I say, Tucker’s a cute guy, and easing myself into getting neuropressure from him seemed like a great idea.  There’s no problem regarding fraternization, and I’m sure he could do with a little R and R as much as I could; we may have to go easy on the neuropressure after all, but I’m sure we can come up with a few alternative forms of physiotherapy to aid mutual relaxation.  Our pre-mission briefing included enough warnings about misbehavior on board ship, but hell, we’re all a long way out of high school.  If sharing a bunk with a good-looking Fleeter now and then helps foster friendly relationships, heck, I’m all for it – especially with him being a fellow Floridian and all.

It’s not a surprise that he doesn’t manage to land a single hit on the target, and steps back at the end with a look of angry frustration.  Out of all the Fleeters, only Sato manages to score – a single hit that brought the faintest softening to her boss’s set face.

During the next set of tries, Reed improves steadily, the hard thin line of his mouth a sign of his utter concentration.  Tucker gets in a couple of shots, Mayweather gets one, Sato seems to have run out of luck.  In between times we coach and correct them.  Nobody even attempts to coach Reed, who either works or waits his turn in a radioactive silence.

When the session’s over, the Fleeters leave without a word.

“You’ve improved some, sir, but you still need to schedule those practices,” calls the major, as Reed reaches the door, last of all.

Even Chang winces, and _he_ thinks Reed’s a total asshole.

The lieutenant stops and looks around.  I sort of expect him to give the boss the sort of look that’d incinerate anything not made of duranium, but he’s completely expressionless.  Even his voice is flat.  I’d defy Sato to pick an inflection out of it.  “Nothing at all is so good it can’t be improved upon, Major,” he says, and it sounds oddly as if he’s quoting somebody.  Then, before the boss can say anything in reply, he walks silently out of the room.

Duty’s over for the day, but we still go around the place just in case, making sure everything is tidy and locked away for the night.  I hear Romero offer to deactivate the practice system, but Major Hayes doesn’t seem to hear him.  He’s standing at the firing point, blasting away at the target ball with awful accuracy, hit after hit after hit.  I’d give odds that my record was beaten within the first couple of minutes, but he’s not keeping score, and it seems like none of us can quite get up the nerve to go check on it.

We all hang around for about ten minutes, watching uncomfortably as our boss fires away at the zinging target like an automaton.  We haven’t been dismissed.

Finally Mackenzie takes a deep breath.  “Squad dismissed.”

He hasn’t given her an order either, but she’s his XO.  We’re just grateful she’s willing to make the decision.  We file out of the room almost on tiptoe, leaving her standing there watching him.

It’s not good.

It’s not good at all.


	12. Gomez

_¡Me cago en todo lo que se menea!_

I admire _Teniente_ Reed.

Truly, I do.  I know that he is an officer _incomparablemente_ as regards the discharge of his duties and the care of his staff.  I know that he is upright and honourable.  I know that he would die before allowing harm to come to the least important member of the crew.  I know that he is my dear friend as well as my senior officer, and that he is as clever as he is kind at heart.

But at this moment I could beat him around the head with a reinforced duranium bar, for I begin to think that nothing less than that will beat some sense into it.

He cares for _Comandante_ Hayes.  Of course he does.  If he did not, there would not be a quarter of all this trouble.  And unless I have grown old and fanciful before my time, the _Comandante_ cares for him too.

And neither one of them will admit it – much less act upon it.

_Mierda!_

All of us knew, when we accepted this mission, that we may not return from it; such things are in the hands of God.  To my mind at least, this makes it all the more important that we should snatch at every chance of happiness that comes our way.  _Ciertamente_ , there are the regulations, but it seems to me that the good God will not feel them a good reason to pass up an opportunity to show love to another human being, especially here in the Expanse where none of us know if we will see another day.

I should be sleeping.  Out here in space the fiction of an Earth day is maintained, because that is what our bodies are comfortable with.  I will shortly hear the shrill of my alarm clock, waking me to take command of the Tactical Station for the duration of Gamma Shift, and as a rule I am soundly asleep still – not lying wide awake contemplating beating my _patrón_ over the head with a duranium bar, which is a thing of which I do not at all think the _capitán_ would approve.

It is insupportable.  It cannot go on.  As much as it pains me to think of it, I will have to call a council of war.  I will talk to Bernhard and we will talk to _Comandante_ Tucker, and the three of us will put our heads together.  And somehow we will come up with something, some way to ensure that two equally foolish and equally stubborn men are brought to their senses.

Or by the good God, I will know the reason why not!

My alarm clock goes off just as I am revolving in my head various ways of drugging _Teniente_ Reed and depositing him conveniently naked in the c _omandante_ ’s bunk.  I must have been sleepier than I thought at the time this idea entered my mind, because as I head for the shower I realise despondently that although it seemed an excellent one at the time, the chances of the _comandante_ taking the proper advantage of this happy circumstance are depressingly small.

Maybe my friend is not the only one who needs to have his head attended to with a duranium bar to knock some sense into it.

I know you will say that the two of them are behaving this way simply because they detest each other.  But I who have known the _teniente_ for over three years know that this is not how he would behave to someone he detests.  He _cares_ what Hayes thinks of him.  In the course of our daily duties we hardly see one another, but there are times when we can simply meet as friend and friend; for a coffee in the Observation Lounge on a Sunday morning – a little habit we have fallen into over the years – where we talk or are silent as the mood takes us, as friends should.  And though it is not his way to speak much, little things of late have given away the direction of his thoughts.  He is full of doubts of himself, of how he may measure up in the eyes of _some other._ He pretends it is the _capitán_ , but truly I believe it is not of Jonathan Archer that he thinks in the long taut silences – though I know very well, knowing him as I do, that Archer’s bringing another military man on board, of a higher rank, has caused him much anxiety for his own position aboard _Enterprise_.

As for Hayes?  Plainly I do not know him.  And not for all the wealth in the world would I so betray my _patrón_ as to speak of such delicate matters as these to one of those who do.   But given the difference in their ranks, the _comandante_ has been surprisingly forbearing of imposing his will and his experience on a man who would be placed in a most difficult position were he to disagree.  This matter of the extra training sessions is the first evidence I have seen of Hayes _deliberadamente_ setting out to antagonise him – and although I can understand why the _teniente_ should object to the imposition (he having always at least half a protective eye on poor _Comandante_ Tucker, who already sleepwalks around the ship), I myself think they are not at all a bad thing.  I am not too proud to learn from a MACO, if such a thing is possible, and _normalmente_ Malcolm would be the first to wish that his team – and even he himself – should be placed in the way of improving their skills, regardless of the source.  Another pointer to some deep issue between him and Hayes, to my mind.  Resentment?  Maybe.  He has reason to be resentful, all of us know and understand this, and even share it a little; we, who have kept the ship safe until now.  But though they circle one another like scorpions in the sun, such dances can have completely different meanings, and only those who dance fully know the whole.

Hé!  It is foolishness in me to sit here thinking.  I shall have to hurry breakfast, or I will be late for shift takeover and Bernhard will be sitting at Tactical looking worried.  Poor Bernhard, I sometimes think he worries even more than the _teniente_ himself, if that were possible. 

Me?  I do not worry.  I act.

_Adelante!_

My route to the Mess Hall takes me past the gymnasium.  Peeking through the doors, I am not at all surprised to see my _patrón_ in there.  He has been there for some time, by the looks of it; the sweat is spreading down his grey shirt, but still he throws kicks and punches at some unseen enemy, bouncing on the balls of his feet to evade counter-strikes in return. 

I shake my head.  I have seen him practise alone many times before, of course, but there is something in this frenzied hostility that makes me fear for him. 

Something must be done.

I change my course and head for the turbo-lift instead.  Bernhard will wait a few more minutes.

Fortune smiles on me.  I encounter _Comandante_ Hayes, on his way to somewhere that is not in the least important.  At least, it is not important to me, and therefore I have no compunction in venturing to address him, in my most innocent voice, and inform him that if he is looking for _Teniente_ Reed he is in the gymnasium.

It has to be said that whatever their other failings may be, the MACOs are unfailingly courteous to women.  As old-fashioned as it may be, I find it charming.  And in many ways _Comandante_ Hayes himself is a charming man.

It remains only to make one other person see that – or at least admit it.

I do not think, _con toda honestidad_ , that he was looking for the _teniente._ But he is not slow on the uptake, the _comandante_ , and he thanks me politely for the information and heads towards the gymnasium.

It is not at all my province to supervise two grown men as though they were children – despite the fact that they are both behaving as if they are.  So I nod approvingly and resume my journey towards the Mess Hall, where I eat a hearty if hurried breakfast, and thence towards the Bridge, where Bernhard is indeed looking worried because it is so unlike me to be late. 

But at my smile his face clears.  _Estimado_ Bernhard, he worries far too much.

I have always found action to be far more use than worrying.


	13. Hayes

Ensign Gomez is a very smart woman.

As far as I know, there’s no earthly reason why she should actually think I’m looking for Lieutenant Reed.  So when she stops me in the corridor and tells me where he is, there’s got to be a good reason for it.  A damn good reason.

Yeah.  I can see through that innocent expression like it was made of glass, and she’s not fooling me into thinking that she’s anything other than a very intelligent young officer who thinks something ought to get sorted around here.

Well, I was going to go with Morrison through the checklists for our away team gear, but it’s not like anything’s likely to have changed in a week where we haven’t set foot off the ship.  So on the way to the gymnasium I comm him to say something’s come up and he’ll have to do it on his own – a job he’s perfectly well able to do without me looking over his shoulder.

So.  I have an hour.  Surely that should be enough time to finally find some way to get it through to that stubborn ass in the gymnasium that we’re both on the same side – and that I’m not the enemy he seems set on seeing me as.

As for anything else?  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s too late for that.  But I’m sure as hell going to give it my best shot.

That thought carries me as far as the gymnasium.  But as I walk in and I’m confronted by the reality – by the spectacle of the man I’m trying to befriend, and who radiates fury with every movement he makes – then my confidence suddenly seems ridiculous.  I’ve been trying so hard for so long, and it just feels like all my efforts are making things worse.

Maybe the kindest thing really will be to leave him alone.

But as I turn to leave, his voice snaps out, “Are you leaving so soon?”

The bitterness in it tears at me, though I don’t think you’d know from looking at me; I know he’s thinking all over again of that night nearly ten years ago.  “I don’t want to distract you,” I say evenly.

“It’s no distraction.  In fact, I could use a sparring partner, _if you’re up for it_.”

The last words I remember with any clarity, got out with some effort at the restaurant table.  ‘If you’re up for it, I...’

Without warning, my own anger explodes.  How long is he going to hold on to the injury, how long is he going to go on punishing both of us because I was stupid all those years ago?  What gives him the right to make the call on whether it really is or was ‘for the best’, without giving me even half a chance, without so much as an explanation?  “Always.” 

If I can’t talk sense into him, I’ll damn well beat it into him.  But I’m under no illusions as to the magnitude of the challenge I just accepted.  He’s not inviting me to the sort of sparring session we so carefully supervise in our juniors; this is going unleash everything that’s been boiling under the surface for so long.  It’s going to get nasty.

I should have more sense.  _He_ should have more sense.  But at this moment, sense seems to have deserted both of us as I move in, throwing a couple of cautious hits both to warm myself up and to test out his defenses.  He counters the first with a forearm block and puts in a backfist, which I compliment as though he were a raw recruit trying to impress an old hand.  He responds savagely to my invitation to show me the combination, but I see an opening as he lunges, and next minute he’s flat on the mat, the wind knocked out of him.

He can do better than this; his anger is betraying him.

He’s a dangerous fighter when he’s cold.  Unfortunately for him, he can’t get control of the rage I inspire in him, and I’m not going to let him if I can help it.

One fall isn’t going to decide this bout.  He’s up on his feet again almost before he’s landed, his eyes glittering.

“Faster on that combination,” I taunt him.  “You’re improving.”

The words are almost the undoing of me.  He doesn’t waste time listening, but unleashes another attack, one that I’m hard-pressed to parry.  His own praise spits at me: “You want to keep that left up.  That’s it, stay loose.  Excellent.”

I counter as best I can, but he lands a punch to my ribs that fetches a gasp out of me.  Then, on the panted words “You’re improving!” a flurry of moves ends with me sprawled on the mat, his weight pinning me down.

The irony of this situation isn’t lost on me.  Unfortunately I’m not in a position to see whether he sees it as well as I do.

His breath is hot on my ear.  I’ve dreamed of that too.  _“You were looking at my hands when you should have been looking at my eyes,”_ he hisses.

Well.  Those weren’t exactly the words out of any of my fantasies.

How bitterly he must have resented my advice to Mayweather, to spit it back at me now.  I wonder if Captain Archer has any real idea of how fanatically protective his tactical officer is of the ship’s crew.

A spike of jealousy runs through me.  Would he avenge me so fiercely?  I doubt it.

After a final push he sits back and lets me up.

I take my time getting back to my feet, making him think I’m more hurt than I really am.  It’s a feeble trick at best, and I don’t think he buys it; his gaze is like that of some wild animal, uncaring of whatever pain I may be in.  “Okay, Lieutenant.” 

“Major.”  A feral little smile writhes across his mouth and he beckons with the fingers of his raised and ready hands, inviting me forward for some more.

I’m more than willing to oblige.  The exchange that follows is out-and-out vicious, but it’s I who win it, sending him crashing to the mat again.  “Tell me something,” I pant, as I hold him down in my turn.

“What?” he snarls.

There are a dozen questions I could ask.  But only one of them matters right now.  _“Why won’t you let me do my job?”_

A twist of his body, a hook of one leg, and it’s my turn to slam onto the floor.  But the bitterness in his voice as the accusation finally spills out of him is the acid that’s been eating him since I arrived, not the underlying grievance I know he’s still nursing.  “Because you’re here to enhance the combat capability of this ship, not take over security!”

I stare at him incredulously.  I won’t say it _hasn’t_ occurred to me occasionally that just for the duration of this mission it’d be easier all round if he wasn’t having to ride two horses – Tactical and Security – but hell, the thought of being confined to a ship like this for years on end is my idea of Purgatory; I wouldn’t take his job if they paid me in latinum bars. “Is that what this is about?  You think I want to replace you?”

He glares.  “You just can’t stand taking orders from me, can you?”

There are so many replies I could make to that, but there are security cameras in here, and he sure as hell wouldn’t thank me for making our little ‘issue’ public knowledge.  Bitterness makes my reply emerge flat, sullen.  “I have no problems taking orders from you.”

I don’t know why – maybe he feels the same resentment at our false position as I do – but the answer just seems to fuel his rage.  He flies at me, and unfortunately for him, his anger is once again his undoing.  It’s not without cost, but I finally manage to put him down on the floor, so hard I can’t believe he has the energy to get up again.

It’s such a fucking shame.  The misery and rage – yes, and triumph, because he’s one of the best fighters I’ve ever been up against – makes my valedictory needlessly spiteful.  “After lunar survival training I could survive just about anything.  Good sparring with you.”

I’m already regretting that childish jibe before I’m even at the door.  ‘Lunar survival training’, thrown at a guy who’s been out here in space for three years!  But I know there’s no point whatsoever in turning around to try to amend matters.  He’s white-hot and defeated, and both of us will have to cool down before we make any attempt at mending fences.

‘Defeated’.  Yeah, that’s what I _thought_.  But I utterly underestimated the rage that would ignite inside him as he watched me walk away from him again, and even as I trudge into the corridor, I hear this maniacal scream from behind me.

_“HAAAAAAAAAAAYES!”_


	14. Reed

Shame.

That’s all I can feel as I stand in the Captain’s Ready Room, receiving the entirely justified tongue-lashing from my Commanding Officer.

The pain of my injuries – earned.

The embarrassment of the stares as we walked through the ship – earned.

The mortification of walking onto the Bridge to report to the captain after the threat was dealt with – earned.

The Look from T’Pol – earned.

The lecture from Phlox – earned.

The shocked stares of my team – earned.

The indignant stares of the MACOs – earned.

The entry on my report, which should burn a hole in the screen – earned.

The damage to my promotion prospects – earned.

The loss of the captain’s regard for my professionalism – earned. 

The cost, so appallingly high.  The reward – well.  Talk about a Pyrrhic victory.

I haven’t lost control so completely since I was about five.  I just about remember the occasion.  I can’t remember now exactly what I’d done, made a papier mâché boat or something like that, but I’d made _some_ attempt to earn Father’s regard.  And instead of earning his praise – desperately wanted, even then – it had earned scorn that cut me so deeply I lost control and flew at him, screaming and kicking out in the mindless outrage of my disappointment.

Needless to say, that wasn’t behaviour in line with the best traditions of the Royal Navy.  The only time I got a worse punishment than that day’s was when I neglected to show the appropriate respect to the White Ensign on Trafalgar Day.

I’d thought that beating would have taught me a lesson for life.

Apparently not.

Hayes shouldn’t be taking an equal share of the blame.  In the ship’s hierarchy, I’m his senior officer.  The brawl is my responsibility.  I should have known better – I _did_ know better. 

I should have stopped it before it started.

I hardly hear the captain’s lecture.  It’s drowned out by the remembered whistle of Father’s belt cutting air before it landed.  The only way I could have earned a little forgiveness that day was to have ‘taken my punishment like a man’, but it’s tough when you’re only five; I seem to remember sobbing and screaming and trying to get away, his grip on my stick-thin upper arm so strong that afterwards it left a bracelet of bruises.

At least this time none of those are an option.  I’m stuck to the Ready Room floor as though my boots are welded to it, taking my punishment like a man.

The tirade is just showing the first signs of abating as the comm sounds.  Both Hayes and myself have given assurances that ‘the problem’ is fixed; this isn’t strictly true – I’m not sure either of us think it is – but if we can regard ‘the problem’ as our behaviour, then I for one can guarantee that from now on my conduct will be exemplary.  I can only think, in hindsight, that the total loss of control was some kind of temporary insanity.  Now, in its aftermath, I’m sane, sober and sad.  I should know better than anyone on board this ship that violence solves nothing – and most certainly not the ten-year-old anguish of a relationship that was doomed even before it had started.  It earthed it, perhaps, and most effectively; I feel utterly drained, and at a guess Hayes does too.  But solved?

No.  The bleeding still goes on.  I can feel it inside, in the quietness, an infinitely slow draining.  I know I’ll go on feeling it till the day I die.  Whenever that will be.

Apparently the alien in Sickbay has regained consciousness.  This is what the captain has been waiting for, and he leaves the Ready Room almost at the run, apparently dismissing us from his mind.  For the time being, at least; no doubt he will hand out the appropriate punishment sooner or later.  Whatever it is, I earned it, and I’ll accept it without complaint.

A doubtful pause ensues.  In the strict sense of the regulations, we should remain where we are until given leave by the captain to move.

I feel Hayes’ unease, the mirror to mine.  Our CO has given us no instructions.  We’d both stay here and await his return if ordered, but if he’s simply forgotten about us – as I for one believe he has – then what are we supposed to do?

The regulations are clear.  If we were still on duty, our response should be to stay here until the captain comes back, however long or uncomfortable the wait would be; in ordinary circumstances, nothing other than the obligation to avoid soiling my uniform would stir me a step, if I had to stand here immobile till he returned to the Bridge tomorrow morning.  The doubt is introduced by the fact that Phlox put us off duty for twenty-four hours to let our mutual achievements settle down.  If we stay here, we’re disobeying orders from our ship’s CMO to return to our quarters and rest.  That in itself is a disciplinary offence.

It’s a singularly awkward situation.  And a singularly awkward person to have for my prospective partner in crime.

Captain outranks CMO, it’s true.  But the captain hasn’t actually issued an order, and Phlox has.  The way my bloody luck’s going, I could stay here till tomorrow morning and get put on report by the captain for being put on report by Phlox for obeying the regulations.

I can’t help feeling this would be a little hard.  On top of everything else.

The pause stretches out a bit longer.  I lick my dry lips, nervously, feeling the sting of the cut in the lower one.  Then I break the silence, an anxious mutter from one miscreant to another: “Think we’re dismissed?”

Perhaps thirty seconds pass.  “I guess so,” he mutters back at last.

I consult my chronometer, both ears on the stretch for the captain’s return, though I strenuously doubt it’s going to happen any time soon.

At a guess, T'Pol will have gone down to Sickbay with the captain.  In her absence, there won’t be any officers senior to myself on the Bridge to give us permission to leave – not that we require it, strictly speaking, since Phlox ordered both of us off duty.  Trip, if he’s recovered from that bang on the head he got last night, will be holed up in Engineering, starting the repairs to my handiwork; I can certainly expect some jocular comments on _that_ score when next we meet up.

We’re already so deep in the excrement with the captain that I doubt whether leaving the Ready Room without permission will add anything significant to the depth of our disgrace.  And I for one want nothing more than to retreat to my lair, strip off the uniform I donned with so much difficulty and discomfort so short a time ago, and crawl into bed to lie there and contemplate my own stupidity.

“Let’s go,” I decree after about another five minutes has passed.  For what it’s worth, I’m still the senior officer.  This time, the responsibility really is all mine, though at a guess Hayes would get up on his hind legs and argue about it if the captain did decide to take exception.

More like two scrubby, sorry schoolboys than two senior officers, we slink out through the door and through the Bridge to the turbo-lift. Fortunately this is set to wait at the Bridge when not in use, so we don’t have to stand there under the covert stares of the Bridge crew – though I catch a rueful glance from Hoshi, and Travis carefully doesn’t turn around, having doubtless seen all there was to see when we arrived.  Ensign de la Haye, currently covering Tactical in my absence, stares sedulously at the readouts as though hoping to read the future in them.

We get into the turbo-lift and Hayes directs it to E Deck.  His own quarters are on G Deck of course; at a guess he’ll go straight there after letting me out on E.

I’m too tired to say anything.  Too heartsick. Too worn out to go on fighting, too drained to go on caring.

Finally, it’s time for this to end.  Time to accept, as I suppose I never really have accepted, that it was just never meant to be.

The lift comes smoothly to a halt.

I turn towards him.  I have no idea what I’m going to say.  Some pathetic sort of apology I suppose.  With an inhuman effort I’ve composed my face into expressionlessness, though inside I’m wailing like that desperate five-year-old.

His hand on my face is a complete shock.  I freeze as it slips in to cup the left side of my jaw.

His mouth on mine is gentle, mindful of the cut there.  We kiss in a vast silence,

The opening of the lift door breaks us apart, to the visible disappointment of the Head of the Gamma-Shift Tactical team who’s waiting there.  Her bright gaze goes from one to the other of us, and she steps back to let us out before whisking herself into the lift and disappearing in it – though it seems to me that her smile has lingered bodilessly in the air for a moment afterwards, like that of Alice’s Cheshire Cat.

He walks quietly beside me to my room.  We don’t speak or touch.  Even when I’ve entered my code he waits for my glance to let him know it’s OK for him to come in.

Even now he’s here I’m afraid to speak.  It’s as if one wrong word, one wrong move will break the spell and all this will shatter into a million fragments; and if it does I’ll shatter with it, and All the King’s horses and all the King’s men / Will never put Malcolm together again...

He kisses me again.  Holding me with both hands this time, and the warmth of his fingers begins to melt the ice of my incredulity.

His body is firm under my hands, though I touch with care, knowing all too well the damage I inflicted on it with such abandon yesterday.

We help each other strip to our boxers; though certainly not unaware, the process is restrained, and very different to what I’d always envisaged.  Phlox helpfully provided us with ointment for our assorted bruises, and for a time passion is held in check while we gently and silently administer it to each other.  It’s done with a surreal tenderness suffused with guilt that I’m responsible for all this damage, and silently I swear to myself by everything I hold dear that never, never again will I fight in anger.

Finally we’re done.  By this time we’re sitting side by side on my bunk, and once again I’m terrified of speaking; the wheel has come full circle and I’m not sure I can cope.

He’s battered.  So am I.  Each of us did our worst, each of us knows our guilt and shame.  I want to say _I can wait_ , but the truth of it is that I can’t, and I don’t think he can either.

It’s probably just as well that no words seem to be necessary.  He watches me carefully as he pushes me back on to the bunk and follows me down.  I shift my hips to let him strip off my boxers, which he does slowly and almost reverently, trailing light and random kisses down my uppermost pelvic bone, while I lie back, shuddering with tension, and inside my head the words _love me, love me, love me_ pound to the rhythm of my speeding pulse.  Next moment my fists clench on the blanket beneath me and I bite down on a strangled moan; I can’t tell if it’s _don’t_ or _don’t stop_ , but if he doesn’t, my control will only hold for a matter of seconds.

Fortunately – or unfortunately? – he does stop.  He slides back to lie against me, and his tongue flickers against the undamaged side of my mouth as I take my turn at divesting him of his underwear.  He’s warm and toned and hard, exactly as I imagined all those years ago, and with a groan I roll on top of him. The pressure, heat and friction of our bodies are thrilling; I start to move, pleasuring both of us while he gasps and pushes against me.

It was supposed to be just foreplay, but I can’t stop, I don’t want to stop, and I don’t think he wants me to either.  I can smell his sweat and aftershave, sweet and musky, I can feel the movement of his body under mine; his hands grasp at my back and buttocks, a delectable pain where the bruises are still blackening, but nowhere near great enough to distract me as I up the pace, answering the demand I’m no longer in a position to deny.  His breathing’s fast and desperate, the beginning of a moan in it, and as my own control finally shatters I tear my mouth from his and sink my teeth into the pillow while both of us buck and convulse with pleasure.  Somehow he stifles the sound of his own release, and by the time I eventually spit out the ill-used cotton he’s trying to regain control of his breathing, which still comes in trembling heaves.

I’m trembling a bit myself.  It’s been more years than I can imagine since words like _Was it OK for you_ held such appalling significance I could hardly heave them off my tongue.  I’d certainly intended the encounter to be a bit more protracted than this; will I be a disappointment?  Will he write me off as being as lacking in finesse and control as a horny teenager, and hardly worth ten years’ waiting after all?

He extricates himself gently from the tangle of limbs we’ve become, and stands up.  My heart in my mouth, I wait for him to grab up his clothes, dress, and leave without a word.  But instead he goes into the bathroom and I hear the rush of running water from the tap in the sink.  Moments later he returns with the wherewithal to commence cleaning operations, and somehow that small shared intimacy contrives to bridge what threatens to become a gulf of apprehensive silence.  Neither of us have yet said a word – at least, not a voluntary one, though the pillow was the recipient of quite a few of the other type – but the quiet is now comfortable.

Cleaning achieved, he still doesn’t leave.  Instead he lies down beside me again, takes hold of the blanket we kicked aside, and spreads it over both of us.

It’s simply astonishing how natural it feels to snuggle.  My arm goes across his chest as though it fits there; my head rests next to his collar bone, listening to the by now almost normal beating of the heart beneath his poor battered ribcage.  His fingers begin slowly carding through my hair, brushing it back into order.  His head is turned towards me, the warmth of his breath fanning across my forehead.

“I’m sorry, Malcolm,” he says simply.  “I failed you, back then.  I failed both of us.  Totally.”

I don’t answer at once.  The situation is not that simple, and deserves better than a simple answer.

“Yes,” I say eventually, choosing my words with extreme care.  “But maybe–” the words stick in my throat a little, but he deserves the truth– “maybe it really was for the best.”

“The _best?_ ” His voice is softly astonished.  Clearly I need to explain what I tried to tell him before, the fruit of much soul-searching done since he joined the ship.

“Yes.”  I think back again to who I was back then – _what_ I was back then.  Unfit to be anyone’s lover; selfish and irresponsible, intent only on taking pleasure where I could find it without giving a damn for the consequences to anyone else.  I’d have taken him, yes, and used him as I used every other lover.  And sooner or later I’d have cast him aside as superfluous to the life I lived, averting my eyes with callous cruelty from the quality of what I was destroying.

“You hurt me.  Badly.”  I continue steadily, lifting my head and forcing myself to meet his gaze.  “I never forgave it.  But if you hadn’t – it wouldn’t have worked out.  And what you did to me would have been nothing compared to what _I_ would have done to _you_.”

A lesser man would have protested against that idea.  Hayes, however, is a realist before anything else.  Presumably he had access to at least some of my files – the ones with ‘Classified’ stamped all over them.  I don’t suppose he was able to get much out of them, but Covert Ops has a very distinctive smell, and at a guess he was easily intelligent enough to guess a lot of what he wasn’t told.

“That doesn’t make my conduct right.”

“Nor mine.  I’ve been an ass ever since you came on board.  I’m sorry.”

“Guess we’re as bad as each other, then.”  I can see the subtle twinkle in his eyes, though his battered face remains serious.  “D’you think _now_ we can start actually having a professional working relationship, as opposed to fighting it out every step of the way?”

It’s not at all in keeping with the British stiff-upper-lip tradition to allow the huge smile of joy and relief that I can feel bubbling up inside me to spread all over my face.  “I imagine something of the sort could possibly be arranged, Major,” I respond in my most lethally upper-class accent, so that beneath me his ribs move in a silent chuckle.

“That sure wasn't how you were talking just now, _Lef-tenant._ ”

I’d have imagined my face had forgotten the mechanics of blushing years ago, but it seems not.  He takes note of this, and the answering grin creeps over his face.  “Good to know I have that kind of effect on you, Malcolm.”

“You seemed to be having a fairly good time yourself, M–Matthew.”

“You could say that.  Yes, you could certainly say that.”  He cocks his head to one side.  “Though it’s the first time I’ve ever been called M–Matthew afterwards.”

I call him something rather less complimentary in response to that, and have my fist balled to land a playful punch on his side before a twinge in my knuckles warns me that might not be the best option – for either of us.

I’m sated, for now, but as my head comes to rest again my hand strays down his side, learning his contours.  He has a great body, and as I hear him sigh with pleasure I know that we’ve only just embarked on our voyage of discovery.  We made war, then we made love, then we made peace and now it’s time to make a friendship.

Will the friendship endure? 

This is the Expanse.  I have no answers.  We may not live to see another hour, let alone another day.  But as he leans down and begins kissing me again, and I feel my body respond, I’m living in the only hour that’s ever granted to us. 

I wasted far too many yesterdays. 

There was a picture on Maddie’s bedroom wall back at home, something she’d put together in art class.  It was quite pretty to look at, in a flowery-girly sort of way, but it was the message that stayed with me.

‘Yesterday’s history.  Tomorrow’s a mystery.  Today is the Present, and that’s why they call it a gift.’

During my years as Jag I espoused this philosophy completely, but in absolutely the wrong spirit.  Instead of being the recipient of joy I made myself the thief of it.  Every pleasure at which I snatched crumbled away in my fingers, leaving me angry and cheated and hollow.

It took me long enough to learn the truth of this, but I know it now.  For the first time, joy has alighted of its own accord on my outstretched fingers, a shining butterfly to be cherished for the moment rather than owned and crushed.  I won’t waste a second of however much of this gift is left to me.

And as Matthew and I slip back into one another’s arms and forget the world, the mystery of tomorrow can look after itself.

 

**The End.**

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are always really appreciated!


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